In manufacturing’s fast-moving environment, the term digital twin is more than a futuristic concept—it’s quickly becoming a critical function. Digital twins—sometimes referred to as digital replicas, digital representations, or digital models—allow companies to have virtual representations of physical processes, machinery, and entire factories in order to design, track, and improve functionality.
In the past, if an engineer wanted to inspect or modify the layout of their machinery, they would have to physically investigate the layout. Today, engineers like those at BMW can use a digital twin—a process facilitated by Nvidia Omniverse—to simulate, optimize, and test an entire factory virtually. Digital twins enable companies to mitigate unnecessary time expenditure, reduce costs, and improve accuracy by simulating challenges long before they hit the production floor.
As a result, many individuals refer to the landscape of simulation and digital collaboration—and its implications for productive work—as the industrial metaverse. According to forecasts, the industrial metaverse could be a $100 billion industry by 2030, as long as its continued development is focused on simulation and digital collaboration.
Top Digital Twin Platforms in Manufacturing
Let us examine the categories of digital twins that are allowing manufacturing workflows to undergo a digital transformation.
1. Hexacoder – Digital Twin Solutions
HexaCoder is a leading provider of digital twin platforms for manufacturing, delivering powerful, interactive solutions that bridge the gap between physical production and virtual simulation. Our digital twin technology enables manufacturers to create precise 3D replicas of machinery, processes, and entire factories, allowing real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance, and data-driven optimization. With HexaCoder, businesses can visualize operations, test scenarios, and streamline decision-making without costly physical trials. By integrating IoT, AI, and 3D visualization, our platform enhances efficiency, reduces downtime, and accelerates innovation. HexaCoder empowers manufacturers to embrace Industry 4.0 with scalable, customizable digital twin solutions tailored to their unique needs.
2. Dassault Systèmes – 3DEXPERIENCE & DELMIA
3DEXPERIENCE enables the virtual prototyping of products as well as the simulation of complete multi-stakeholder value chains (like aerospace, automotive) thereby reduces dependence on real-life prototypes and allows companies to shorten time to market. The DELMIA platform takes this on step further by enabling virtual factory planning, lean process simulation, and logical workflows to be incorporated in a multi-stakeholder view, while also providing capabilities that allow for ERP systems to be integrated to enable holistic organizational engagements.
3. GE Digital – Predix
Predix is focused on predictive analytics and realtime assets performance. Their twin platform is used prominently in heavy industry, energy and aviation as it allows for downtime reduction, improved reliability and performance and enables predictive maintenance at scale.
4. PTC – ThingWorx
ThingWorx has good integration and connectivity with CAD and PLM systems and allows digital twins to be connected to IIoT. The platform also supports AR capabilities to allow for intelligent insights and improved collaboration across divisions within discrete manufacturing processes.
5. Microsoft – Azure Digital Twins
If you are looking for a cloud-native digital twin project, Azure Digital Twins is ideal, allowing for swift modeling of environments and processes. With accompanying AI analysis, manufacturers can optimize workflows, mock up “what-if” scenarios, and consolidate data across ERP and IoT systems.
6. IBM – Maximo Application Suite
IBM Maximo enables AI-driven asset modeling across all plant-based manufacturing operations. Maximo’s analytics are more focused on optimizing predictive maintenance and managing the lifecycle of equipment, minimizing and controlling unplanned downtime, and maximizing asset value.
7. SAP – Digital Manufacturing Cloud
SAP brings digital twin capability into the physical environment of factory operations. With live tracking, production schedules, and integration with ERP systems, all operations have seamless visibility and accountability tracked throughout the supply chain.
8. Autodesk – Fusion 360 & Twinmotion
Fusion 360 and Twinmotion are well know products to product designers that are equipped with not just CAD capabilities but also interactive 3D modeling experience, plus digital twin features. For designers, these platforms are most get utilized in research and development prototype design and visualizations of products before they ever get built.
9. Rockwell Automation – FactoryTalk Twin Studio
FactoryTalk Twin Studio will allow manufacturers to create a virtual simulation of a production line that will allow them to experiment with automation logic without the burden of real equipment, debug hook-ups, or performance issues before anything is physically deployed. FactoryTalk Twin studio also integrates not only with Robotic controls but on direct link to actual Production control systems to give the plant a more appropriate simulation to match with reality.
10. Schneider Electric – EcoStruxure Digital Twin
With a strong emphasis on sustainability and energy efficiency, EcoStruxure provides digital twins that monitor energy usage, optimize workflow processes, and help lower the carbon footprint in smart manufacturing.
11. SAS + Unreal Engine
In a recent announcement, SAS has incorporated its AI analytics into the Unreal Engine to enable a realistic digital twin experience to explore machine behavior, production decisions, and prototyping in virtual environments prior to real-world deployment.
Considerations for Choosing the Right Digital Twin in Manufacturing
Scalable across teams and industrial locations
When investing in digital twin services, make sure the digital twin can scale across multiple factories, teams, and location. Ensuring scalable operations allows for consistent workflows, consolidated access to data, potential for easy expansions as your manufacturing business grows, and minimizes costs associated with costly retooling and redundancy in the process.
Connectively to existing IoT / ERP landscape
A robust digital twin should connect automatically to existing IoT sensors, ERP, and MES. By connecting seamlessly, your manufacturing systems achieve a cohesive and continuous flow of data, allowing for pre-programmed monitoring; emerging predictive and prescriptive analytics to evaluate operations and supply chain parameters; and ultimately improving your decision process without disrupting your existing systems or changing operations.
Analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for predictive insights
The use of digital twins powered by AI and machine learning gives manufacturers the capabilities to predict, avoid failures, optimize production schedules, and reduce down time. In addition, advanced analytics allow for a form of data-driven foresight that can help companies transition from reactive fixes to proactive operations focused on efficiency throughout the entire manufacturing lifecycle.
Simulation fidelity to model complex behaviours
The resemblance of a digital twin to an existing system is based on the depth of the simulation. High-fidelity digital twins can simulate machine behaviour, stress conditions, and other process interdependencies, letting manufacturers test scenarios virtually and avoid costly mistakes prior to physical implementation of a planned process.
Domain specialization (digital twin solution for automotive and energy-focused solutions, etc)
All industries experience their own distinct challenges. The advantage of choosing a digital twin platform specialized in automotive, aerospace, or energy processes is ability to gain tailored capabilities that meet your workflows, KPIs, and compliance needs, rather than using the tools available in generic, one-size-fits-all solutions tools.
Support and cost structure to maintain and scale
Look for, and evaluate vendor support, update frequency, and cost structure. A scalable support model that is predictable for expenses can help to ensure that you can keep your digital twin future-proof, and responsive to changes in your business objectives as they arise, without unexpected expenses that would slow ROI growth.
The Hexa Coder Edge in Digital Twins
3D configurators
Hexa Coder offers full-featured 3D configurators to allow manufacturers to design, visualize, and optimize products or production layout in a virtual space. These realistic visualization tools operate within the digital twin ecosystem, allowing for quicker insights in decision making, and ultimately, helps avoid costly mistakes before production begins.
Virtual Asset Lifecycle Management
Hexa Coder provides an infrastructure for managing digital twins, which enables companies to monitor, manage, and predict asset performance throughout their lifecycle. Digital twins receive valuable real-time data while you typically load them in the moment before performing a prescribed maintenance task. Scheduling maintenance and making monitoring independent means downtime is minimized, increasing asset ROI and building operational resilience at scale.
Custom the way you integrate
The deployment of digital twins through Hexa Coder, can be customized to your enterprise environment, and can seamlessly connect with your ERP, CRM, and IoT platforms. You receive value through digital twins by customizing the interfaces and experience in a way that is appropriate for your company and operational structure. The approach provides consistent visibility into operations at all levels, delivering efficiencies while providing a single platform to address your unique set of manufacturing needs while enabling agility and operational flexibility.
Future Directions: What’s Shaping the Future of Digital Twin Manufacturing?
Growth of the Industrial Metaverse
As mentioned earlier, the intersection of digital twins, augmented and virtual reality, spatial computing, and robots is creating a virtual industrial metaverse. This convergence will advance digital twins from the abstract to actionable and autonomous systems.
AR/VR Collaboration
With the opportunity to partner with Apple’s Vision Pro through Dassault Systèmes’ 3DLive application for augmented and virtual reality immersive experiences, creates opportunities for real-time twin collaboration for remote diagnoses and planning – this saves time by reducing the risks of deployment and improves precision.
AI and Digital Twin Convergence for Automation
Novel AI agents, such as those highlighted at SAS Innovate 2025, are just beginning to drive digital twin environments to guide simulated environments that allow for automated optimizations and predictive workflows, among multisite manufacturing operations.
Robots Training and Simulation
Because robotic systems can learn in a digital twin environment virtually, manufacturers can deploy autonomous systems with greater confidence at an overall reduction in physical testing, and with better assurance that the outcome will be smoothly transitioned to the real world.
Conclusion
Digital twin solutions are pivotal to modern manufacturing. From simulating factory layout solutions to real-time operations improvement wherever planning processes take place, the digital twin platforms we reviewed – Siemens Xcelerator, SAS + Unreal Engine – are all formidable options with unique and exciting value.
Plus, these heavy-hitters are in no way the exclusive heavyweights in this space! Similarly, Hexa Coder and other software elements are also expanding the possibilities of the digital twin ecosystem with 3D configurators, digital asset management, and similar tools that abstract simulation to reality in a thought-provoking and operation-driven way.
With manufacturing increasingly defined by the precision, speed, and sustainability capabilities offered by the best technology, digital twins offer businesses strategic accelerators to its capabilities. You may look at this from simulations ease of use, integration to IoT, data-driven AI optimization, or augmented reality immersion and collaboration, each digital twin technology could unlock manufacturing’s advantages for tomorrow.