by Dylan Kane (ZF Group)

In 2018, the ZF Industrial Technology Division began the endeavour to become an active player in the digital twin domain. This included defining the technology, its benefits, exploring some contextual examples from various industries, scouting ZF customers in the construction vehicle, agricultural machinery & material handling spaces, as well as competing suppliers in order to project where ZF could generate a unique value proposition in this space. Key challenges including convincing customers to share field data were tackled through an interactive, creative approach considering the wide variety of ZF Off-Highway customers. Finally, leveraging key expertise, ZF was able to form a collaborative partnership with an Italian tractor manufacturer in order to advance the technical & business model possibilities of a digital twin.

Dylan Kane is an engineer by training, with additional specialization in product design thinking. Since 2016, he has led projects to create digital products & services based on the information generated by ZF's world-class drivelines, manufacturing & testing systems. Dylan now sits at ZF's newly established Global Advanced Analytics Hub in Barcelona, where he leads Data Strategy, identifying advanced information sources that, via data science, boost and enable entirely new business models for ZF aftermarket assets, like the ZF Autonomous Transport System.