[Chris Jones]

1 minute ago, olivierthereaux said:

Agreed! The presentation tries to cover that in some respect.

When we started exploring this web of twins I also expected to mostly be thinking about (raw) data flows, but we quickly realised that there is just as much value, if not more, in getting collaboration at the higher levels (models, insights, decisions).

Great. Have you any thoughts on how that might work?

[Chris Jones]

17 minutes ago, Nicholas said:

Thanks Chris and Andrew. I think that you have been doing some interesting work to look at connections between twins in different sectors/areas (or twins that connect across these sectors). Are there any specific thoughts on what might help networks of cross-sector twins?

Just reading through Olivier’s ODI Data Access Map – a bit too much to digest immediately on first glance. What does strike me about that, and the conversation in the thread, is that we’ve very quickly got hung up on data, which is essentially the lowest level of the twin concept (ref the triangle diagram in the Gemini Principles). Far greater challenged will emerge as we seek to connect twins as this will require co-modelling across vastly different systems, with huge differences in temporal and spatial scales, it will require much more complex decision support and solution space optimisation and for twins to be designed and operated in a manner that makes the benefits they bring to be made available to non-expert users.

[Chris Jones]

2 minutes ago, Nicholas said:

Thanks Chris and Andrew. I think that you have been doing some interesting work to look at connections between twins in different sectors/areas (or twins that connect across these sectors). Are there any specific thoughts on what might help networks of cross-sector twins?

Hello Nicholas. As I mentioned – finding that common purpose. As Olivier mentioned in his excellent presentation, the greatest value is likely to be from cross sector connections but these will be the most difficult to engineer and will require some imagination as to how the costs and benefits are shared. I can see that in time new business models will emerge to enable this, and digital twins will themselves be an useful tool in designing, testing and operating those new business models.

[Chris Jones]

2 minutes ago, olivierthereaux said:

One of the things which our research hints at, is that we may not be seeing (only) direct data connectivity between twins, but in many cases there will be pooling/aggregation of higher level data by intermediaries. 

The need for standards and protocols starts is driven initially by a need to connect sub-systems, rather than to enable an extensive web of systems. If we think about VCRs (apparently the go to case study for standards), it was important from an ecosystem point of view to develop and adopt standards, not from a wider connectivity point of view. So, if I buy a digital twin of a pump (ideally provided alongside the physical asset), I need to know it will plug into my exiting digital twin of my pumping station, and to my network digital twin. We can then in time scale from there to an infrastructure level.

[Chris Jones]

2 minutes ago, Andrew Myers said:

That was a really interesting talk. 

Northumbrian Water explored some similar themes at our Innovate East event last year.

Some of the outcomes/discussions points are below:

Standards need to be simple and broadly applicable. We don’t want a high barrier for adoption 

• Core mandatory data items (as few and simple as possible)
• Optional but standardised data items (e.g. BIM/Uniclass)
• Any other data items (flexible and extendable standards)

Aim to keep the data sharing as simple as possible – how many types of data do we need? What level needs to be shared?

• Time Series Data – e.g. temperature sensor readings
• Event Data – e.g. an engineer visit, a status change
• Configuration or Meta Data – e.g. date of manufacture

Agree.

I noted the emphasis on ‘purpose’ in the GE definition – we also explored this with partners at Innovate East. It is clear that the need for common understanding (if not actually a standard) starts with defining the purpose and value.