“Even though sometimes it just doesn’t go as planned and some projects have to be interrupted, we are happy. The knowledge that digital twins bring to our customers might have a much higher value than implementation of the former intention,” says Petr Jaluvka, executive head of DYNAMIC FUTURE. 

He is reminiscing positively about two projects that weren’t eventually put to life. There is a study of road traffic in the city centers of Český Těšín and Cieszyn and also a study of a rolling mill in Třinecké železárny (iron and steel works). “In both cases, the client made a much better decision thanks to dynamic simulation than the one he would’ve made without it. From the perspective of process and parameters knowledge, our outputs opened the eyes of competent persons and showed the way things truly work,” states P. Jaluvka. 

Two bridges connecting two cities

This year, it was 101 years since Těšín became Český Těšín and Cieszyn. Both Silesian cities lost a lot back then, Český Těšín lost a historical center, Cieszyn lost a train station and the tram line connecting the center with the train station was canceled as well. Today, Český Těšín is one of the most important border crossings to Poland, but also a place of many cultural activities. Residents of both cities don’t really notice the border, they pass through as needed. In 2010, Euroregion Těšínské Slezsko assigned a study to DYNAMIC FUTURE – on increasing passability across two bridges connecting both cities. 

“Implementation of change in practice comes with a lot of risk, dynamic simulation as a predictive tool helps to minimize it and enables to model the working environment, as well as simulate consequences of decisions,” writes P. Jaluvka in the project while adding that during creating a digital twin, a radical difference was shown between the lived notions of Těšín people and reality. 

DYNAMIC FUTURE worked with three simulation variants: establishing two-way traffic on the Svoboda bridge and transferring 20 % of traffic intensity from the Družba bridge through the Svoboda bridge; establishing two-way traffic on the Svoboda bridge, closing the bridge of the Družba bridge for automobile transport and creating a pedestrian zone; establishing two-way traffic on the Svoboda bridge as well as the Družba bridge and transferring 20 % of traffic intensity from the Družba bridge to the Svoboda bridge. 

Petr Jaluvka doesn’t hide the fact that at the time, he considered the best option to be complete closure of the Družba bridge and building a pedestrian boulevard that would connect both cities and enable visitors to have a nice walk from the Czech side to the castle located on the Polish side. 

“The simulations of both versions finally showed that none of the proposals would lead to traffic collapse and identified one critical spot, the crossroads of the Karvinská and Viaduktová streets. There was an interesting finding that the lived notion of the locals about traffic jams on Wednesdays and Saturdays, where there was an opening of Cieszyn’s markets, had long been not valid. The finding that some residents used one-way bridges in two ways was quite funny,” describes Petr Jaluvka. 

The whole project was discussed on such a level that if it wasn’t realized, there were compelling arguments for that: “I think that it was eye-opening for the people and also showed how things really work and what the options were. To me, it’s a more important way towards creating a digital twin. A great result might be that the customer gets the examined process under control, knows about the factors entering it, and what the scope of influencing parameters is. From this project, we leave with the fact that in terms of process understanding, the customer is on a completely different level than when he asked us for cooperation. And that’s important.”

A rolling mill that made no sense economically 

Another example of an unfinished project like this, is a 13-year old project of a rolling mill reconstruction that Třinecké železárny had checked out by digital twins. Suppliers of main technologies were exclusively involved in the negotiations at first. The reconstruction was simulated based on the parameters they presented. “The more we penetrated into the project, the newer and more crucial findings were revealed. It was shown that the products that were supposed to be produced, needed to be stored, manipulated etc. In the beginning of the negotiations, there were four of us. At the final presentation, there were 40 people involved in the study in some way,” says Petr Jaluvka. 

Třinecké železárny was planning a reconstruction worth one billion CZK, the simulation showed that the company would need 7 billion CZK. “Our work was extremely meaningful, because without it, the company would probably find out about the costs of the work too late. Stopping this train from running would probably be impossible. One example for all of them: the siding boss that was presented with the data on manipulation with material divided into a timeline, said that it shows the need for another team which meant they needed another operating vehicle. A locomotive costs 100 million CZK, plus four people in four shifts, some rate of illnesses etc. Now, from something quite irrelevant, there is a big amount of money that should have been integrated in the project,” describes the executive head of DYNAMIC FUTURE. 

Conclusion? It’s obvious that every project is unique for a consulting company that is working with dynamic simulation. And sometimes, it’s a good thing that it goes unfinished. Instead of a pedestrian boulevard in Český Těšín or enormous factory reconstruction, both executives find more importance when they hear the general director say something like “I’ve been sitting at this desk for twenty years and today I have found out stuff that I had no idea about,” or the opposite: “I can’t imagine finding about all of this in half a year or a year from now”. 

“The way we look at the processes is so specific that it can shortly provide an accurate image of how things really work. It’s extremely simple to create a variant for the customer, where we deny everything and build something completely new. That doesn’t seem like the way to go, it doesn’t make sense ecologically and morally either. Sometimes, a small change is all you need to get the result you expect. And that is one of the crucial reasons why clients ask for our services again and again. We don’t force them into generating more and more enormous investments,” summarizes Petr Jaluvka.