We need to set a goal and then just do it

[Henry Fenby-Taylor]

We've just had the first Hub Together and the question of how and what we should be doing in the interests of the common good came up. The point where we finished up and where this thread begins is that you can't spend years coming up with a plan, sometimes you just need to set yourself a goal, take a moment to orient yourself to achieving it and then get going and just do it.

This is a bit of a challenge to the Commons stream who are doing a high level ontology, but my question to you is can the grassroots bottom up approach work hand in hand with a top down strategic approach?

[RachelJudson]

Well If I can say, the Pathway document intends to do just that.  If anyone hasn't read it, it is here and a fair amount of commentary about it was raised in the soon to be released Responses to the IMF Pathway consultation too. We will be looking at updating the Pathways document in the coming months to reflect the work done, the feedback received and our refocused approach.

This past year has seen the technical team focusing on developing an FDM (Foundation Data Model) Seed for the (Construction Innovation Hub) CIH's Platform Design Programme and many of the output from that will inform the development of the top down approach detailed in the Pathway. (This is where the surveys of Top-level Ontologies, Industry Data Models and more have been developed)

But Commons have also been working with Accelerator Groups  to begin investigation into the bottom up approach. In keeping with Section 4.2 Tasks 2 and 4 of the Pathway, we are keen to build a Corpus of organisations with Digital Twins to develop demonstrators. If asset owners with Digital Twins are looking to explore the bottom up approach we would LOVE to hear from them.

[Andy Parnell-Hopkinson]

Henry, this is sort of what I've been saying forever. If there's a business case for building a twin etc, the longer you wait for someone else to provide you with a bunch of standards, the more likely your business case will go away, so JUST DO IT! (Someone should trademark that).

Sure, keep an eye on standards development and don't lock yourself out but first mover advantage only exists if a) you're first and b) you move.

By the way, what is this Hub Together of which you speak?

[Henry Fenby-Taylor]

Great response @RachelJudson  and thanks for the link. I've been doing some ontology work in my other life and I'm seeing the value of knowledge graphs and other diagrams like that when you have a deeply complex problem to solve. Which let's face it, the idea of a national digital twin is. Hey, this post was intentionally contentious to promote this sort of discussion, but I do think more could be done to promote new technology platforms and the like. I don't even know if that's the place for CDBB, but it feels like an opportunity.

@Andy Parnell-Hopkinson I'm glad you agree, I'm seeing that the UK is leading by doing both in the standards space and in the development of twins itself (not always true, but there's generally a trend) why do I get the feeling that when we exit lockdown you'll be the 'first mover' onto the dance floor, call it a hunch.

[Henry Fenby-Taylor]

oh and the Hub Together is a monthly town hall that we're starting to run where the community can come and feedback to the Hub about how the programme is working for them, what could be improved etc. it's quite a light hearted affair, I'll try and dig out the link for the next one for you.

[Andy Parnell-Hopkinson]

@HenryFT the UK is certainly doing things but I've noticed interesting activity in Australia and US, particularly the Digital Twin Consortium. Where the latter organisation scores highly for me is that they are strongly leveraging decades of digital experience in the manufacturing sector - which I see as distinctly lacking in most discussions in the UK.

By the way, call it a hunch if you like but it's just the way I walk.