Digital Twins: Not Just For Assets

Have you made a digital copy of your organization yet?

Most think Digital Twins are simply digital models of the physical asset but we think they have potential to be so much more. We think they must take people, process and behaviors into consider in addition to asset data!

Beginning with BIM

As we create new assets and infrastructure in the modern era of digitalization, design approaches like Building Information Modeling or BIM, like the system develop by our Reliability Partners at Bentley Systems come to mind.

BIM is important to contractors of large projects for both a visual and quantitative model of the build. BIM is also useful for materials ordering and scheduling.

BIM software is used on projects by architects, engineers and contractors to create a central point of building reference in a 3D digital model. This model makes it easier to collaborate and recalibrate design during projects.

According to Industrial MegaProjects by E.W. Merrow 65% of MEGA Projects fail with cost and schedule overruns greater than 25%. (Slide courtesy of David Armstrong, Bentley Systems)

The benefits of BIM include lowering the risk of projects through a reduction in errors, better schedule/timeline and budget management. Countries like UK have actually mandated BIM for projects with public spend and they are quickly jumping ahead of the United States, the birthplace of BIM!

Digital Built Britain Operational Model

According to a national BIM survey in the UK, the large-scale adoption of BIM is also helping the government to meet a number of strategic aims, including:

• A 33% reduction in initial construction costs and built asset whole life costs.
• A 50% reduction in build time from inception to completion.
• A 50% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment.
• A 50% trade gap reduction between the import and export of construction materials and services

The potential benefits seem pretty clear, but will the US follow suit? If not - it seems pretty clear that if the two political sides ever agree on an US Infrastructure renewal bill, we will likely be hiring UK companies as the architects, engineers and contractors to create them - but I digress and will save that topic for another day!

Is BIM the Digital Twin?

Because it results in a 3D model, some people connect the concept of BIM with that of a Digital Twin. BIM is optimized for collaboration and visualization during design and construction, not operations and maintenance.

Digital Twins are quickly being recognized as the most valuable part of a projects’s tech stack – it’s a comprehensive picture of your projects built environment in real-time. A Digital Twin can give you information about the current state of build subsystems, how they’re being impacted by operations behavior when assets like hydraulic system or the motor control center might fail and much more. It’s a model that evolves over time to deliver more value with each new stage of the asset’s lifecycle. BIM is a key data input for any Digital Twin, but BIM alone cannot answer the operational questions owners and managers may have about optimizing operations.

According to Gartner, the next evolution of the Digital Twin will see use cases moving beyond just assets to include entire organizations or the Digital Twin of an Organization (DTO). This means people, process and behaviors will also be important data sources that give Digital Twins even more context about the built environment.

 In the physical world, the digital twin is a digital replica of the assets, processes, and systems that comprise a physical object. The digital twin creates a living simulation that updates and changes as its physical parts change. One of the current applications for digital twin of a physical thing comes from the industrial sector, which leverages digital twin in order to optimize the operation and maintenance of physical assets such as engine on an airplane.

A digital twin of an organization (DTO) is a dynamic software model of any organization that relies on operational and/or other data to understand how an organization operationalizes its business model, connects with its current state, responds to changes, deploys resources and delivers expected customer value.” (Marc Kerremans, Market Guide for Digital Twin of an Organization Technologies) The digital twin has many applications that range from enterprise performance to reliability and cost optimization to customer experience management, but all applications of the digital twin are intended to support organizations in their decision making processes. Creating a virtual copy of an organization is meant to help business leaders explore their options, engage in scenario planning, and minimize the risk of the organization’s chosen path.

It is early in the digitalization journey for most organizations. In reality, many organizations do not have a mature decision making framework, because they lack mature processes, they lack mature information management and they lack mature cross-functional and collaborative leadership. Moving toward Digital Twins for Organizations may make all the hard work involved with maturing people, processes and technology well worth it for the long run! Who do you need to talk to in order to consider if Digital Twins for Organizations is the direction your organization should be pointing toward?