Developing Skills & Capabilities

During our research activities within the DT Hub, several barriers relating to the use of digital twins were identified. This blog post, which looks at digital skills, reflects on skill as a barriers and considers related issues so that we can discuss how they may be addressed. As organizations develop a wide array of datasets and supporting tools, a key concern has been the capability of the people using these resources to make decisions and take action. To do so, these people need to be sufficiently skilled. Industry reports, such as the Farmer Review, have consistently identified skills shortage as a key issue within the built environment. This figure below, produced by the Construction Products Association (CPA), shows the proportion of firms who have had difficulties in recruiting traditional trades. For example, in the first quarter of 2017, over 60% of firms had difficulty recruiting bricklayers. A cause of this shortage is the lack of training being provided by organizations within the built environment. As shown in the figure below from the Farmer Review, workforces within the built environment are some of the least trained. While an obvious solution may be simply to provide more training, the issue is confounded by the fact that we need to inject a new set of skills in to the sector; increasing the amount of training required. In 2018, The World Economic Forum produced their Future of Jobs Report. It considered what are the current emerging and declining skills as a result of digital transformation, automation and the fourth industrial revolution. These, are highlighted in the table below. Considering the results provided, the need for manual skills as well as installation and maintenance skills are declining rapidly. As such there is a risk that any immediate training to fill our skills gap may not be suitable for future employment needs. As initiatives such as the Construction Innovation Hub and Active Building Centre consider Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DfMA) and other more modern methods, perhaps the focus should be on which skills are needed for the future. Digital twins, as representations of physical assets, processes or systems, will need to be interfaced with built environment professionals of the future. The question however, is in what capacity? Let’s consider a scenario: Cardiff University has a digital twin of their campus. Within this twin, they have included sensors to record the usage and occupancy of lecture halls to access space optimization. For an estate manager to be able to use this twin, they may benefit from: Software skills, to interface with the incoming data. This software may not be part of their core asset management system; needing additional knowledge and skills to use. Analytical thinking, to allow them to test scenarios. For example, to test what would happen to usage if a single building was changed to private rent from external customers; improving the universities income generation. Creative thinking, to allow them to consider new ideas. For example, to use the timetable to place lectures that straddle lunch across-campus; increasing foot-traffic past the university lunch hall. Intuitive thinking, to allow them to question outputs. For example, to be able to identify when a faulty sensor may have led to data discrepancies or when an analysis programme has identified importance solutions due to its correlative nature such as starting lectures at 6am to free up more rooms for private rent. Ultimately, the reason for adopting digital twins will be to provide value for an organization and its wider ecosystem. As such, problem-solving skills, critical thinking, systems analysis and analytical thinking will likely become core competencies. For organizations with critical long-term planning requirements, future employees need to be taught these skills now so that they are appropriately competent for the future. And there we have it, breaking the barriers related to skills. How relevant do you think the WEF top 10 growing skills will be for future consumers of digital twin content? What skills do you consider to be core to future digital twin users? the_pathway_towards_an_imf.pdf DTHUb_NewbieGuide_May2020_(1).pdf HUB Version_DT Standards Roadmap_November 2020 (3).pdf

Why this theme? DT Hub activities focus on a set of thematic areas (themes) that are based on shared opportunities and challenges for members. These themes are areas where collaboration can help members to gain greater understanding and make more progress towards realising the potential benefits of digital twins. This short introductory piece outlines the scope and approach for the second theme: Digital twin competencies: To help organizations understand the competencies, skills and cultural considerations that can help them to successfully adopt digital twins, as well as fostering collaboration and making recommendations on the best way forward Why did we identify this theme as priority? Each of the members we spoke to raised concerns about digital competencies within the built environment. To maximize the value that a digital twin can bring to an organization, the different actors who might undertake digital twin related activities must have the necessary knowledge, skill, and authority to do so. In other words, without a sufficiently competent set of individuals to realize the benefits, digital twins will be under-utilized. In recognition of the built environment’s challenges with training and upskilling its workforce as well as the concern raised by DT Hub members, this has become a prioritized theme. Scope This theme will build on work being done through the National Digital Twin (NDT) programme Enablers stream and will develop ideas and recommendations based on real-world experience from members and from the wider market. In addition, this theme will also help to test some of the underlying principles of the NDT programme which may influence future digital competency frameworks. Engaging with this theme can help digital twin owners start to address questions like: Who within my organization should interact with our digital twins? How will they interact with digital twins? What knowledge and skills are needed to undertake these activities? What skills gaps do I have and what gaps are there in the built environment overall? When looking to hire new staff who will interact with our digital twins, and what core competencies should I be looking for? What cultural orientation is helpful to successful implement digital twins – what can I learn from others? Related to the first bullet above, work has been started by some members to identify the types of actors that may interface with their digital twins. Building on this work, we plan to discuss and agree a schedule of “personas”, that broadly represent a suite of roles, and then build a profile of the competencies against each persona. Objectives The main objectives for this theme are then to: Identify a schedule of personas that cover relevant roles for a notional organization, ensuring sufficient flexibility and scalability. Understand (from examples) what digital twin related activities each persona is expected to undertake Using an industry recognised system such as the European Qualification Framework (EQF) to map knowledge, skill, and autonomy requirements to each of the relevant activities Feedback learnings to inform into the development of the NDT programme Enablers work Generate insight to potentially develop a digital twin competency framework NOTE: It is acknowledged that organizations such as CITB are working on digital competency frameworks, and it is hoped that engagement with such activities is done via the Enablers stream. We’re already starting on the first set of activities for this theme and we are creating some content for you to dive into including: A Webinar to discuss the theme requirements, including a broad discussion around persona and competencies. Topics and posts to kick off conversation within the hub (for example a piece on competencies related anonymizing data) as well as links to interesting external sources based on this research. We are adding these to a dedicated forum for theme 2 Research into interesting examples from other industries of approaches that consider digital competencies (coming soon - we will also add interesting links to the theme 2 forum) What next? There are lots of opportunities for you to get involved, including in activities to flesh out this theme. We want this to be driven by member’s views and priorities, so it would be great if you would comment on this post including to tell us: Where you are seeing initiatives that could benefit skills development in the digital twin area Use cases and in-house examples that might help inform this work Specific competency activities you may be working on related to building knowledge and skills Any views that you have on what digital twin competencies look like