It is impossible to imagine production without the digital twin, which is a key component of Industry 4.0. It maps the entire production process and enables direct intervention in production at any time. It is the digital representation of a real object in the digital world. Researchers from Fraunhofer IAO and Fraunhofer IPA are now using the digital twin for the first time in the field of knowledge transfer: Until now, interested parties have been able to find out about new research work and solutions in the Future Work Lab on the Stuttgart campus and have new methods explained to them on site. In the FutureWork360 project, a laser scanner is used to create a digital twin of the laboratory environments, which are then transferred to the digital world and made available online. Technology partner Hemminger Ingenieurgesellschaft is implementing the visualization.

Virtual access to research and innovation
"The 360-degree scanner captures our laboratories spatially and makes them accessible via an online platform, regardless of time and place," says Yeama Bangali, scientist at the IAO and project manager. Via www.futurework360.de, visitors can now go on virtual tours of the laboratories and explore them for themselves. The tours available include additive manufacturing, assistance systems, digital planning and networked production systems.

Bangali and her team have been offering guided tours since the end of March. Live Q&A sessions are possible in online meeting rooms. Texts, videos and images illustrate the research content. Virtual reality, for example, makes it possible to experience various forms of human-machine collaboration. "If a company is interested in a specific exhibit, we invite them to an online web session. The digital exchange in the virtual labs is well received, as we have already seen in webinars with French companies from the Plastipolis plastics processing industry and research association," says the researcher.

New forms of work benefit climate change
The FutureWork360 project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), aims to research what virtual forms of collaboration could look like in the future. "Our approach is proving its worth in times of crisis and beyond. An open day, an Open Lab Day for example, is also possible digitally with our online platform. We also enable climate-friendly, hassle-free working in an international context. There are no flights and therefore no travel costs," Bangali emphasizes. The researcher and her colleagues are currently working on new collaboration tools and optimizing the digital twin of the Future Work Labs. as