What is a digital thread?

A digital thread is a connected flow of product data that links every stage of the lifecycle, from design through manufacturing, service, and retirement. It establishes traceability of product information across multiple domains in the product lifecycle to provide in context relationship connections between a product’s digital assets.

The digital thread maintains meaningful relationships among all of a product’s digital assets—and their revisions over the lifecycle—across multiple domains throughout an enterprise and the supply chain. The digital thread is an attribute of an enterprise’s information architecture that connects data elements in different tools and systems from a wide range of vendor providers.

The history of digital thread technology

The digital thread, initially coined in 2013 is finally becoming understood as an essential enabler of value as digital engineering quickly becomes the central focus for many enterprises. Digital thread was first used in the Global Horizons 2013 report by the USAF Global Science and Technology Vision Task Force. It was further refined in 2018 by Singh and Willcox at MIT in their paper entitled “Engineering with a Digital Thread.”

What systems does a digital thread connect?

The digital thread connects digital assets including:

• BOMS (bills of material)
• Parts
• Software
• Electronics
• CAD models
• Documents
• Requirements
• Simulation and analysis data
• Verification and validation data
• Supplier specifications
• Manufacturing process plans (MPP)
• Inspection and test plans
• Service and maintenance records

How is a digital thread different from a digital twin?

Product assets need an accurate digital representation, a digital twin, for context to interpret data streams. Without configuration context, the time series data generated in production and during ongoing operation lack integrity and can lead to misdirected actions, which could result in safety issues and liability. In addition, interpreting and acting upon this data often requires traceability to prior information from related revisions, the digital thread, to make decisions. As artificial intelligence and machine learning are introduced, the necessity becomes even more significant.

Companies require a digital twin context to improve processes, predict and prevent outcomes, build better products, and measure performance, allowing them to move towards advanced product and asset strategies. Benefits include increased uptime and better management of maintenance problems, including predictive maintenance; technological advancements can be the solution to predicting maintenance problems with a proper digital twin configuration.

Digital thread use cases/real-world examples

Seaspan is part of Canada’s national shipbuilding strategy, operating three facilities responsible for new construction, repair, and retrofit services for the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard. Seaspan realized that product lifecycle management was key to modernizing their shipbuilding facility. Their top goal was to establish a single source of truth with Aras Innovator as the consistent data source for a “one-stop shop” for visibility into all product information. This requires a digital thread, which provides opportunities for improvement in maintenance management, including predictive maintenance.

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. adopted Aras Innovator as the development platform for its electronic control systems. Aras Innovator contributed to efficiently managing complex in-vehicle software variants between Nissan Motor and its alliance partners. With Aras, Nissan has realized the benefits of integrating with its alliance partners and constructing a digital thread.

Caltex Oil Tools is an innovative leader in the energy sector, where complex one-off projects require engineering, manufacturing, and maintenance to stay in lockstep. They’ve tackled these challenges with Aras’ core PLM capabilities and extended the digital thread into their manufacturing activities with connectivity to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central (D365).

Industries that can benefit the most from a digital thread

A case could be made for the digital thread as beneficial to most manufacturing organizations. Complete lifecycle visibility and traceability position any large organization at an advantage competitively. One application for digital thread is leveraging performance data for sustainability and aircraft design. In addition to digital twins, in the design phase, we create digital models. This allows users to model and simulate an asset, connect its configuration to the digital thread of product data, and enable operations and maintenance to access these models and simulations as a design comparison during the initial ideation and production stages.

Industries with heavy compliance requirements will all benefit from a robust digital thread. There are many ways in which a digital thread provides manufacturers with means to improve their sustainability and achieve compliance. It is essential to set requirements and goals so that you can take a holistic view toward understanding how actions will impact the target and the business. With the help of enterprise technology, companies can collaborate on shared digital thread data, which can be viewed at varying levels of detail and in different contexts. This facilitates greater traceability and supports informed decision-making.

Increasing product complexities, like automobile electrification, create significant product opportunities. However, effectively governing the underlying design process requires Systems Thinking with a PLM platform-managed digital thread across the product lifecycle.

The digital thread benefits most engineering-based industries as well as consumer goods, food and beverage, automobile, and aerospace parts analysis data, and more.

How Aras can help

The digital thread connects data related to quality activities from the concept phase of the product’s lifecycle all the way through production in a single, authoritative source of truth, helping to ensure visibility and accountability across related processes. With the platform, engineering, manufacturing, and quality groups get a highly configurable and flexible solution to pivot when the business climate changes. A platform approach enables the digital thread and allows teams across the enterprise to follow a product’s digital history and all its related digital assets—from the initial planning and analysis through design, manufacturing, testing, and to final sustainment and disposal.

FAQs

What is the difference between a digital thread and a digital twin?
The difference between a digital thread and a digital twin is that the digital thread connects product data, relationships, and revisions across the lifecycle, while a digital twin represents the configuration of an individual product or asset. Together, they provide historical traceability and current configuration context.

What systems does a digital thread connect?
A digital thread connects product information across systems used for engineering, manufacturing, quality, service, and other lifecycle activities. This can include PLM, CAD, ERP, requirements management, simulation, manufacturing, and service systems, creating relationships among data that would otherwise remain separated across different tools and domains.

What is the difference between a digital thread and PLM?
A digital thread is not the same as PLM. PLM provides the processes and technology for managing product information throughout its lifecycle, while the digital thread connects related product data across systems, disciplines, and lifecycle stages to provide continuity, context, and traceability.

Where did the term digital thread originate?
The term digital thread originated in the U.S. Air Force’s Global Horizons 2013 report, which described a vision for connecting digital information across engineering and lifecycle activities. The concept was further developed by researchers and industry as digital engineering became more widely adopted.