Digital twins in quality engineering

Key Points

In this Quality Quandaries, we briefly introduce the concept of Digital Twins and provide the reader two real-life examples to get an idea about the versatility of it. We also highlight the role of statistics in this rapidly emerging field.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Bart De Ketelaere

Bart De Ketelaere is a Research Manager at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). He combines a master and a PhD in bio-engineering with a master in statistics and has developed a keen interest in industrial quality control. He is elected Honorary Member of the European Network of Business and Industrial Statistics (ENBIS) to recognize his significant contribution in the area of industrial statistics. He is the (co-)author of more than 140 ISI publications and is inventor in more than 10 patents. He is strongly involved in the valorization of research and in the creation of spin-off companies.

Bart Smeets

Bart Smeets, head of the Particulate Dynamics lab at MeBioS, KU Leuven, focuses on the mechanical and rheological characterization and simulation of self-organized multicellular assemblies, such as organoids and biofilms. For this, he develops advanced particle-based computational models which are based on the Discrete Element Method (DEM). His ambition is to establish a mechanical 'digital twin' to represent artificial tissues as they undergo various unit operations during biofabrication in the lab.

Pieter Verboven

Pieter Verboven is research manager in computer aided design and engineering of agrofood processes at KU Leuven. His main research interests are heat and mass transfer, computational fluid dynamics, agrofood microstructure and postharvest technology. He holds a PhD in Applied Biological Sciences from KU Leuven. He is on the editorial board of Postharvest Biology and Technology, Journal of Food Engineering and Frontiers in Food Science and Technology. His h-index is 43. He also coordinates technology transfer for the group.

Bart Nicolaï

Bart Nicolaï is a full professor at KU Leuven (Belgium) and leads the Postharvest Research Group. He is also director of the Flanders Centre of Postharvest Technology, a public-private partnership which was established by the University of Leuven and the Association of Belgian Horticultural Co-operatives in 1997, and co-founder of the Optiflux spinoff company. His main research area is postharvest biology and technology, with a focus on gas transport and metabolic reprogramming during hypoxic storage of fruit and vegetables.

Wouter Saeys

Wouter Saeys is a professor at the KU Leuven Department of Biosystems, where he leads the Biophotonics group with a focus on applications in the AgroFood chain. His main research interests include light transport modelling and optical characterisation of biological materials, chemometrics, agricultural automation and robotics. In 2013, he received the ‘Young Statistician Award’ from the European Network of Business and Industrial Statistics (ENBIS) for his work on multivariate calibration of spectral sensors in the agrofood industry.