Digital Twin Roadblocks – Jam 3 – Problem Prototyping, Ideas Please!

[Andrew Scullion]

Show them it working. And yes, that means sorting out the data for them, and building a technical solution for them, before you get any investment from them.

[Gary Todd]

Examples of proven successful DT business cases that can be used as templates – would enable innovators to present DT use cases in a way that has worked in other sectors, particularly helpful for sectors where digital twins are an unknown (in our case, childcare and social care).

[Paul May]

Guide and lead, do not tell or act as though you know better, make the process, like Twins, Cooperative.  Be supportive and humble, do ont pretend to be an expert and fall into the traps BiM fell into.  Do not talk about BiM or Standards, encourage people to ask If Only and to be creative.  This is new untraveled ground and ISO19650 (for example) has no place here, rattling of standards stifles creativity.  Be a ally to your client (and in all things), not an expert

[Philip Pauley]

Digital Twin’s can be used to help companies to monitor their carbon footprint and accelerate their Net Zero taregets by improving operational performance.

All buildings, transport/energy networks represent a target for terrorism and most companies have little control over who has/had access to their asset drawings.

From architects to contractors and third party supply chain (who worked on the project, who had access to the drawings/BIM files, where are these files kept, who has access now, did leavers keep or copy asset files – cyber security policies and commitments are important but they are relatively new and untrackable).

Mandate a centralised repository for the built environment (national (critical) infrastructure), where access can be monitored and securely maintained…

[Elena Vrabie]

I think we need to look at some of the priorities in conjunction to unlock some of the prototyping ideas, for example if we work on pulling together some data to define some of the impacts and benefits (which is a Medium priority in Readiness), we can use this information to address the Client Understanding, which is a High priority in Need and Want.

 

 

[Elena Vrabie]

Define a career framework for the new skills in order to address the Expert and Skills priorities in the Readiness category

[Nicholas Pickop]

Be clear what your definition of a Digital Twin is when you are talking to clients. This way you manage their expectations on what is achievable within the context of the Twin you are proposing. This is not to say that you are limiting the potential of what you are offering, but by focusing your definition it becomes more transparent what is achievable in a given timeframe and what the resulting benefit to them will be.

For example our Digital Twin is focused around 3d representation and therefore simulated visualisation is a key selling point of the Twin, this can be built upon over time to expand the definition what it can do.

Regarding up front investment – yes, this is something that early adopters have to front!

[Simon Taylor]

Hi Katie I didn’t attend JAM 1 or 2 so may be missing some context but surely there is a massive overlay between items 1 & 5 – ‘client understanding’ a Need & want and ‘purpose’ as a need and want. I know for our company to sell our twins we have to have the clear purpose and then be able to explain the understanding the client of the value in that purpose with a staged approach of how to get there. 

[Katie Walsh]

On 23/11/2021 at 17:48, Simon Taylor said:

Hi Katie I didn’t attend JAM 1 or 2 so may be missing some context but surely there is a massive overlay between items 1 & 5 – ‘client understanding’ a Need & want and ‘purpose’ as a need and want. I know for our company to sell our twins we have to have the clear purpose and then be able to explain the understanding the client of the value in that purpose with a staged approach of how to get there. 

Hi Simon, Yes thank you, great point yes the overlaps have been noted and I suspect that in the last analysis, in our final report, we will pick these overlaps out for more explanation, and in some cases maybe amalgamation. Purpose and Client understanding are intimately connected but not quite the same thing – they also are a twin star themselves, revolving around each other – the purpose may be clearly defined but the client may not understand why it’s needed. This is what’s emerged from the jams – so we keep what’s emerged so as not to lose information, we will learn more in Jam 3 – you are attending I hear, so if you’d like to be in the ‘need and want’ group for break out please let me know. 

[Katie Walsh]

On 23/11/2021 at 14:55, Elena said:

Define a career framework for the new skills in order to address the Expert and Skills priorities in the Readiness category

This is a really interesting one Elena – in our break out group we touched on hoe the ‘skills’ we were talking about were not in particular digital skills, but the business or management skills (soft skills) to enable persuasion and convincing to be part of the skill set of those in the business of making Digital Twins. I hope I have represented this correctly – please let me know of not. 

[Anne GUINARD]

I think the DT toolkit report is a great artefact to mention in preparation for Jam 3. Its content resonates with many of the ideas mentioned in the posts above.
It was published in February 2021 by DT Hub members with the objective to aid organisations to consider the need for a digital twin and what it can be used for.

It touches on the following subjects:

What is a digital twin? @Gary Todd (Famiio) , on the necessity to provide hard numbers as evidence of successful DTs How to make a case for a digital twin? (a business case template is attached to the report) Sophistication levels: as you  mentioned @Teknick , it is important to identify the level of sophistication (capabilities of the DT: whether it is informative, predictive, prescriptive …) required to meet the use case for which it is being developed What are the main steps to develop and deploy a digital twin? Additionally, I wanted to mention the DT Toolkit Collaborative Workshop, which was developed as a follow on from the DT Toolkit report. It is intended to help organisations to run online workshops, bringing together colleagues to start to co-create the business case for a digital twin. This is a great conversation starter to drive internal buy-in and set clear action items to start the journey.

[Graham Faiz]

In response to the original question: for us at DNV, we see an almost basic need to align digital twin “art of the possibles” to customer organisational and corporate strategic goals. For example, if one of the strategic goals of an asset-owning organisation is to improve safety; or to reduce operating cost; or to extend operating life; then a narrative needs to be created linking these goals to an overarching digital twin “benefits story”, speaking the language of the client organisation.

Even with correctly-specified digital twins, problems can arise in operation, as physical assets – particularly mechanical, or engineering assets – will potentially undergo many changes during their lifecycles. For many companies, there’s a need to trust that a digital twin will remain fit-for-purpose long after being commercially approved and deployed on “day one”. We see this as a key challenge – and understanding how the trust element can be embedded into the company decision-making culture is key against a backdrop of expensive – and in some cases, failed – “IT” projects.

[Leia Mills]

I agree with so many of the posts here.

Apologies for repetition, but my own experiences:

• Definition of Digital Twin (so many different views in my own company) @Anne – your post was really insightful – thank you
• How to start the journey – who to speak to
• Who do you employ 

[Jenny Clementson]

How can we best persuade clients, or what could force clients, to see the benefits of Digital Twins?

 

Immediate thoughts are: 

Clients to see Digital Twins of tangible assets and systems in action and hear from those who have benefitted

Sector Level Leadership to define requirements/vision for Sector Level Digital Twins and provide financial and mandated incentives and governance for the asset level Digital Twins needed to meet this vision.  

[David Horner]

Demonstrating tangible digital twin benefits – applications or user cases –  rather than just technology and data