Digital Twins: Solving Core Challenges in the Process Industry – 2025 PMv Demo Day Survey
What Do Industry Leaders Expect from Digital Twins?While digital twin technology is widely discussed, the key question is: what do process industry professionals truly need? In May 2025, SIMACRO conducted a live survey during the “ProcessMetaverse™” Global Demo Day, gathering responses from leading companies including CJ CheilJedang, Samsung E&A, and AGC. This article reviews the survey’s main categories, the top-ranked responses for each, and the underlying themes they reveal about the industry’s priorities.
Key Industry Challenges: Productivity and Sustainability
The survey revealed a strong emphasis on improving production efficiency and achieving sustainability goals, with downtime reduction ranked lowest. This shift reflects the industry's focus on resource optimization and long-term ESG performance.Q. What are the challenges currently facing the process industry, and what will be your company's biggest challenges over the next five years?
Real-time optimization – 36.5%
Infrastructure for autonomous operations – 26.9%
Real-time prediction (What-if analysis) – 19.2%
Real-time Insight: Data Analysis and Prediction - 11.5%
Desired Features: Beyond Passive Monitoring
Respondents emphasized the need for active decision-support capabilities that go beyond traditional monitoring systems. These results point to the value of integrated, actionable, and user-friendly platforms.Q. What features do you think are most needed in a process digital twin solution?
Real-time optimization – 36.5%
Infrastructure for autonomous operations – 26.9%
Real-time prediction (What-if analysis) – 19.2%
Real-time Insight: Data Analysis and Prediction - 11.5%
PMv Demo Feedback: Usability as a Priority
During the live demonstration at the event, usability quickly emerged as one of the most discussed and appreciated aspects of the PMv solution. Attendees emphasized that a platform’s success is not only about the depth of its technical capabilities, but also how seamlessly those capabilities can be accessed and applied by users in real operational contexts. For many process industry professionals, ranging from operators to decision-makers, clarity, accessibility, speed of interaction are essential factors in solution adoption.Q. What impressed you most about today's PMv demo?
Building an online digital twin model – 44.2%
Fast and intuitive user interface – 25.0%
Automated AI-driven report and insight generation – 17.3%
An integrated platform for cross-team collaboration - 11.5%
PMv is designed to meet these expectations. Its SaaS-based architecture enables deployment up to ten times faster than conventional methods, significantly reducing the time required to implement a real-time online digital twin system. Proven in global chemical, bio, and energy sectors, it has reduced model build times from months to weeks while offering exceptional flexibility and scalability.
Additional Survey Highlights: Barriers, Benefits, and Future Engagement
Before exploring the conclusion, it’s worth briefly reviewing the findings from the other survey categories.Q. What is the biggest obstacle to driving digital innovation in your company?‘Concerns about technical suitability and reliability’ (44.2%) was the top barrier, followed by ‘Initial investment costs’ (23.1%) and ‘Lack of internal human resources and capabilities’ (17.3%)Q. If you were to adopt PMv, what would be the greatest expected benefits?Respondents identified ‘Increasing yield and work efficiency’ (32.7%), ‘Improving Stability and Quality Control - Polymer Plants .’(23.1%), and ‘Energy Savings - Utility Plants’ (17.3%) as key benefits, with ESG-related outcomes such as ‘Achieving decarbonation targets - Entire process’ (13.5%) also seen as important.Q. Would you like to participate in future events related to SIMACRO/PMv?All participants responded positively about attending future SIMACRO/PMv events, with 62.7% eager to return and 37.3% expressing interest. This means that every single respondent left the event with a favorable impression, signaling strong engagement and trust in SIMACRO’s vision.
Conclusion: Positive Momentum and Strategic Direction
As technologies like mirroring and prediction systems become fully established, achieving real-time optimization will be the natural next step—making the application of digital twin solutions in industrial operations both inevitable and essential. The survey results point to a clear demand for an integrated solution for operational efficiency, sustainability, and user-friendly UI/UX.Digital twins, when implemented with the right architecture and functionality, are poised to become a cornerstone of the process industry’s digital transformation. Ultimately, PMv aims to integrate four critical domains, AI∙digital twin∙data-driven decision-making∙real-time data, and become an 'Intelligent Plant Operation'.With headquarters in Boston and Seoul, SIMACRO has completed over 90 commercial modeling projects across 40 companies since 2018. Collaborating with global technology leaders such as AspenTech, Emerson, and OLI, SIMACRO is committed to advancing digital innovation in the process industry.About SIMACRODesigner