Germany-based NORD Drivesystems has started offering custom-built digital twins of their drive systems, available on demand through the company’s existing customer portal.
The timing makes sense. Virtual commissioning has been gaining ground since the Functional Mock-up Interface standard emerged back in 2010, but most manufacturers still treat it as a nice-to-have rather than essential infrastructure. NORD is betting that making digital twins as easy to request as physical products will shift that calculation.
Engineers configure their drive setup through myNORD the same way they always have—selecting motors, gear units, mounting configurations, whatever their application needs. The difference now is they can tick one more box requesting a simulation model alongside their physical order. NORD built this capability partnering with Machineering, a Munich software firm that specializes in virtual commissioning tools.
The digital twins behave like the real thing- used in simulated production line, it responds to commands, consumes power, generates torque—all the characteristics engineers need to validate before committing to hardware purchases. Look for problems – Fix it in software. – for edge cases that would be expensive or dangerous to recreate physically? Run them in simulation.
NORD is focusing initially on components that matter most for production automation: high-efficiency synchronous motors, matching gear units, variable frequency drives. These are the pieces where getting the sizing wrong or discovering control issues late can derail entire project.
As simulation tools mature and standards like FMI enable interoperability, virtual commissioning is shifting from specialized capability to expected practice. Companies that treat their digital twins as seriously as their physical assets are finding they can iterate faster, deploy more confidently, and recover from mistakes that haven’t happened yet.
Whether NORD’s on-demand approach accelerates this transition or simply makes existing trends more accessible remains to be seen. But making digital twins as routine to request as motors and drives certainly removes one more barrier to adoption.
