GE Digital Partners With Visionaize To Turn Real-Time Industrial Asset Data Into Visual 3D Digital Twins

GE Digital Partners With Visionaize To Turn Real-Time Industrial Asset Data Into Visual 3D Digital Twins

C-suite-led digital transformation, labour shortages, the proliferation of connected sensors, rising costs and sustainability initiatives have all contributed to the rapidly growing interest in asset health monitoring, reliability and failure analytics, maintenance optimization and integrity management – capabilities covered by leading APM software solutions. A Verdantix 2021 survey indicated 62% of 256 respondents saw process optimization and lean operations as a high priority for their firms over the next 12 months, while 86% saw the importance of investing in industrial asset management software to reduce maintenance costs.

GE Digital, the San Ramon-headquartered industrial software firm reporting revenues of nearly $1bn in 2021 and employing around 4000 people, was founded in 2015 and last month became part of a new GE business unit called GE Vernova. In June 2022, they announced their partnership with Silicon Valley-headquartered 3D digital twin software provider Visionaize with a team of 120 data scientists, engineers and developers focused on data-driven, visual 3D digital twins. The result is a facility-wide, fully interactive view of physical assets in a digital 3D space to complement GE’s existing APM solutions with traffic light-style visualizations of risk, corrosion, and integrity operating windows to optimize operational efficiency of inspections. Visionaize’s history as a LiDAR and photogrammetry data acquisition and conversion vendor positions it well for leveraging GE’s APM suite to deliver immersive context for industrial assets and provide a natural, graphical user interface for operational planning and during maintenance.

The increasing prevalence of 3D visualization in industrial asset management is being driven worldwide by a combination of factors. In February 2021, the Indian government lifted its strict rules on the collection, storage and sharing of geospatial data across the country of 1.4 billion people. Since then, several firms such as Genesys have seized the opportunity to capture streets views and generate 3D models of structures from handheld and drone-based LiDAR and photogrammetry. The sudden availability of a nearly untapped market provides vendors of the latest hardware and software a completely blank canvas on which to experiment and innovate without the baggage of legacy systems and historical data integration. In the industrial space, local firms alongside international 3D-capable vendors such as AVEVA, Bentley Systems, Cognite, Emesent and GE will benefit from collaboration with data acquisition service providers to create digital twins of existing industrial facilities in the Indian industrial asset management market estimated to grow at a CAGR of 10%. 

For more information on APM, 3D visualizations and digital twins read the following Verdantix reports: Applications Of 3D Visualization Software And Its Benefits For Industrial Asset Management And Operations, Buyer’s Guide: Asset Performance Management Software, Smart Innovators: Digital Twins For Industrial Facilities