09/14/2026
How to Test Your Logistics Digital Twin
Using 3D simulations so that your digital twin can test equipment and layout changes before spending any capital, including virtual testing and near-real-time monitoring.
Key takeaways
Our digital twin solution combines four integrated technology pillars. Each pillar deals with specific operational challenges, and together they create a system where the whole delivers more value than the sum of its parts. This article covers the third and fourth pillars, and then the integration.
Risk-free testing: Virtual validation of equipment investments and layout changes before purchasing to protect our clients from unnecessary capital spending
Reacting quickly to changes: Near-real-time operational visibility with 15-minute data refresh so that we can prevent problems rather than react to them
Compound value: Each pillar generates insights that inform and improve the others, so the $197K in annual savings and 18% capacity increase from our pilot came from the four working together rather than from any one alone
This is the second of three articles on how GEODIS uses digital twin technology in the warehouses we run for clients. Part 1 explained what a digital twin is, the problems it solves, and the two pillars that produced our pilot results: predictive labor planning and process intelligence. This article covers virtual testing, near-real-time monitoring, and how all four pillars work together. Part 3 explains how implementation runs and the technical architecture behind it.
Pillar 3: virtual testing environment
This pillar lets us test major changes before they happen in your warehouse. We use FlexSim, a 3D simulation platform that creates a complete digital replica of your warehouse operations. It's essentially a safe sandbox where we can experiment with equipment changes, layout modifications, and process adjustments without risking disruption or capital in your live operations.
How it works
The system models your entire warehouse in 3D with exact precision. Conveyors, picking stations, pack areas, sortation equipment, everything gets represented. The simulation captures the behavior and performance of real equipment. We model machine cycle times, worker productivity rates, order flow patterns, and material handling sequences. We can see how orders move through each process step and identify where bottlenecks are likely to form under different conditions.
Testing happens virtually before we touch physical operations. Considering new conveyor lines? We model them in FlexSim and see actual throughput impacts before purchasing. Evaluating layout changes? We run the simulation and watch how order flow changes. Looking at automation equipment? We test it against your specific order profiles and product mix to validate any vendor performance claims.
Here's how this works in practice. Imagine a conveyor vendor promises a system will handle 15,000 units per hour throughput. That sounds impressive, but will it actually deliver that with your order profile? Your facility processes a mix of single-unit orders and multi-unit orders with different sizes and weights. The vendor's claim might be based on ideal conditions that don't match your reality. We can model your exact order mix, product dimensions, and operational constraints in FlexSim to see what throughput you'll actually get before you spend $500,000 on equipment.
The FlexSim platform lets us compare multiple scenarios side by side. We run your current state against proposed changes and see exactly how different equipment configurations or layout options perform under various volume scenarios. We can even model robot behavior and automation sequences, including Locus robots and similar systems, before installing physical equipment in your facility.
What this means for you
Equipment investments are major spending decisions with long-term consequences. A material handling system, conveyor upgrade, or automation equipment easily runs to six or seven figures. Once installed, these systems are expensive to modify or replace if they don't perform as expected.
Virtual testing significantly reduces the risk of these decisions. Instead of relying on vendor claims and reference site visits, we can validate performance against your actual data before you commit. You'll know before spending whether changes will deliver promised results.
This capability also protects you from expensive mistakes. Layout modifications that look promising on paper might create unexpected bottlenecks in practice. Process changes might improve one area while hurting another. Virtual testing reveals these issues in the simulation environment where fixes are easy, not in your live operation where they cause disruption and cost money to correct.
GEODIS can innovate and optimize your operations with confidence. We're not avoiding change because of risk, we're testing changes thoroughly before implementation. This means you get the benefits of continuous improvement without the downside of experiments that don't work out.
Want to find out how a digital twin can optimize your operations and help you make confident spending decisions? Get in touch with GEODIS.
Pillar 4: near-real-time operational monitoring
This pillar gives our operations teams visibility into what's happening in the warehouse right now, not hours ago. Our technology refreshes data every 15 minutes, tracking orders as they flow through each stage of your operations. This near-real-time monitoring lets us catch problems while there's still time to intervene rather than discovering them hours later in end-of-day reports.
How it works
We use an object-oriented approach in Celonis for operational monitoring. That means treating each order as a tracked object moving through defined events. We capture timestamps as orders progress through the warehouse, including induct, picking, detote, packing, sortation, and shipping stages.
The continual data refresh means our operations teams see information that's never more than 15 minutes old. When they open the dashboard, they're looking at current operational status, not yesterday's summary. This turns the digital twin from a historical analysis tool into a real-time management platform.
Dashboards visualize this information clearly for our teams managing your operations. We can track individual orders through their complete journey, filter by order type, check quantities and average times between stages, and identify where delays are happening right now. The Process Explorer view shows order flow across all warehouse events, making bottlenecks visible as they form rather than after they've impacted your shipments.
The system identifies stuck orders automatically. Orders that sit too long between stages appear in the dashboard, allowing our operations teams to investigate and intervene. Bottlenecks developing during a shift become apparent while there's still time to reallocate resources. Performance metrics compare actual throughput against planned capacity, showing exactly where operations are falling behind targets.
Data from your warehouse management system, automation equipment, and other sources flows into Celonis without manual intervention. This automatic integration means our operations teams get accurate, current information without spending time compiling reports from multiple systems.
Results from our pilot
This capability drove part of the overall capacity improvements in the pilot. The 18% increase from 85,000 to 100,000 units daily came partly from near-real-time visibility that allowed faster response to developing issues. Our operations teams could see problems forming and address them during the shift rather than discovering them in end-of-day reports.
The real-time monitoring also validated that the process improvements from Pillar 2 (process intelligence and optimization, covered in Part 1) were actually delivering expected results. We could see immediately whether changes were improving flow or creating new problems, allowing us to make quick adjustments.
What this means for you
Much 3PL reporting shows what happened yesterday. You get daily summaries the next morning. Monthly reviews analyze performance after the fact. This creates a reactive cycle where problems get discovered after they've already impacted your customers.
Near-real-time monitoring fundamentally changes that dynamic. When orders start backing up between pick and pack during a shift, our operations team sees it happening and can respond immediately. When a bottleneck starts forming, we're addressing it while there's still time to maintain your service levels. When throughput starts falling behind plan, we're making adjustments during the shift, not reading about the problem the next day.
This capability matters most during your critical periods. Product launches, seasonal peaks, promotional events. These are exactly when a 3PL provider needs to stay ahead of problems rather than reacting to them. Real-time visibility gives us that insight.
For you, it means working with a 3PL provider who can prevent problems before they become crises. Your inventory moves through the warehouse efficiently. Your customers get their orders on time. And when issues do occur, because they will in any complex operation, we're catching and fixing them quickly rather than letting them compound into larger problems.
Discover how GEODIS monitoring gives you complete control of your logistics and supply chain. Get in touch with GEODIS.
How the four pillars work together to create the digital twin
These four technology pillars give you more value working together than they would separately. Each pillar generates insights that inform and improve the others.
How the integration works in practice
Here's what this integration looks like during actual operations. Process intelligence (Pillar 2) analyzes historical data from your facility and identifies a specific efficiency opportunity, for example that shift changeovers are creating productivity drops during the 2 PM hour on high-volume days. Orders are dwelling longer between pick completion and pack start during this transition period.
Before making any changes to the live environment, we test things virtually using the 3D simulation environment (Pillar 3). We model different shift overlap approaches, test various handoff procedures, and identify which change will actually improve flow without creating bottlenecks elsewhere.
Once we have validated and introduced the change, near-real-time monitoring (Pillar 4) tracks actual performance against predictions. Is the shift changeover smoother? Are orders flowing faster between stages? The monitoring data shows exactly what's happening every 15 minutes. We can see almost immediately whether the improvement is delivering expected results or if we need to make adjustments.
Meanwhile, updated performance metrics from the improved process automatically feed back into our labor planning forecasts (Pillar 1). The system now calculates staffing requirements based on the new, improved efficiency levels rather than outdated performance data. Our forecasts become more accurate with each optimization cycle.
The continuous improvement loop
This creates a self-reinforcing cycle. Better data produces better predictions. Virtual testing validates improvements before implementation. Real-time monitoring confirms actual results. Those updated metrics then improve future forecasts. Each pillar strengthens the others.
The pilot results demonstrate how the pillars work together to multiply value. The $197K in annual savings didn't come from one pillar alone. Labor planning optimization identified staffing efficiencies. Process intelligence found hidden capacity through operational improvements. Real-time monitoring enabled faster response to issues. Virtual testing capability protects future capital decisions. Together, these pillars delivered outcomes that would have been impossible with any single technology working in isolation.
This integration is what makes the digital twin more than just software. It's a complete approach to optimizing the operations we manage for you.
Previously in this series: Part 1, what a digital twin is and what it delivered in our pilot.
Next in this series: Part 3, implementing the digital twin, including the phased rollout, what we need from you, and the technical architecture.
Find out how GEODIS will optimize your warehouse operations using a digital twin. Get in touch with GEODIS.