Power Growth
with a Connected
Product Backbone

A Digital Thread links data and decisions across lifecycle stages, connecting as-designed, as-planned, as-manufactured, and as-performed views of the product and asset. It allows organizations to follow requirements, changes, and quality events from concept through field performance, enabling closed-loop feedback into engineering, faster root-cause analysis, and more confident decision-making. The Digital Thread supplies the contextual data that Digital Twins use, so design, manufacturing, and service all work from the same, connected picture of reality.

A Digital Twin is a dynamic digital representation of a product, asset, or process that stays in sync with its real-world counterpart. It combines design data from Digital PLM with live or near-real-time information from manufacturing and operations, often via a Digital Thread. This lets teams simulate behavior, test scenarios, and monitor performance without interrupting production. In practice, Digital Twins help organizations predict issues earlier, optimize maintenance and quality, and feed real-world insight back into engineering and value-chain decisions.

AI and Generative AI use lifecycle data from Digital PLM, the Digital Thread, and Digital Twins to improve prediction, automation, and knowledge reuse. Hitachi Digital Services has identified more than 60 AI and GenAI use cases and developed over 10 solutions across portfolio, engineering, supply chain, manufacturing, quality, service, and sustainability. These include generative assistance for Bills of Materials (BOM) and documentation, predictive quality and maintenance, and faster reporting – all guided by a structured adoption and governance framework so AI is safe, explainable, and tied to business outcomes.

Results depend on scope and starting point, but programs based on the HDS Digital PLM Transformation Playbook typically target 20-55% cycle-time reduction, 20-45% quality improvement, and 15-40% cost reduction. These gains come from integrated engineering, end-to-end BOM and change control, better data quality, and closed-loop quality and regulatory management – strengthened by Digital Thread connectivity and Digital Twins that expose real-world performance and reliability issues earlier.

Most clients begin with a focused assessment of current challenges, target capabilities, and platform options, followed by a pragmatic roadmap that sequences value delivery. From there, Hitachi Digital Services supports detailed design, implementation, data migration, validation, and managed services – so you move from pilots to a durable, next-generation digital operating model.