[Ian Gordon]

On 25/05/2021 at 12:38, Simon Innovate UK said:

Hi Ian,

Have you linked up to the TIET working group on this?

Never heard of it… tell me more?

[Ian Gordon]

On 14/05/2021 at 22:09, Graham Meaden said:

To take the example above and in the Ontopop video, what is the tool for: building model, exploring a model or supporting a repeatable process? The challenge in my mind is how do we practically bound a graph query and deliver the right information to the user first time on a repeatable basis?

Graham, this is really helpful challenge, thank you.

To answer your question, the target use case is predominantly the ‘exploring’ of the model. We have built the model in Protege, but I find that Protege doesn’t really lend itself to intuitive review by non-data people. What I’m really trying to get to is the ability to explore and review subdomains of the ontology with SMEs where what is presented on screen is simple enough to make sense to anyone familiar with creating mindmaps. It would be nice to add some limited editing functionality so that obvious mistakes can be corrected during that review, but that’s a secondary use case.

[Ian Gordon]

On 14/08/2020 at 17:45, Tom Hughes said:

Although I see it tucked into your governance item I wonder if a specific statement about value about could be missing/be beneficial. 

Value: To define how value is created by digital twins and through the secure sharing of information with others.

Good idea!

[Ian Gordon]

I stole a lot of this content and wrote the following:

Our definition of a Digital Twin is as follows:

A Digital Twin is a digital representation of a physical thing (and its operation) that one can query.

This definition helps us to distinguish between the concept of a Digital Twin, and the more established practice of BIM. The key differences are:

1. Digital Twins can and should be part of the construction phase, but the focus of their use is on the operation of existing physical assets (e.g. the 99%+ of assets that are not currently under construction). Within our organisation (and the wider industry), there is often a loss of data capability as projects move from construction to operations as operators have typically been unable to exploit BIM products. By designing our construction models as nascent Digital Twins we have the opportunity to define the data and logic required to operate an asset at the start of the lifecycle, and ensure that the models we create during construction have operational value.
2. The emphasis on being able to query Digital Twins is important. A Digital Twin should not be a static representation of an asset, it should reflect the logic of that asset in operation. This means that Digital Twins need to expose not just the material properties of an asset (e.g. location, dimensions, materials, etc.) but also the business logic governing that asset (e.g. how we as the infrastructure owner can intervene on that asset to change how it performs). This allows Digital Twins to enable better organisational decision-making through simulation and ‘what if’ scenarios.
3. In order to realise the two points above, the data schema underpinning Digital Twins is necessarily more complex, and more focused on relationships rather than properties. BIM data standards, such as COBie or Uniclass focus on the hierarchies of assets, and their properties (e.g. “span belongs to bridge and is made of steel”). Emergent Digital Twin data models (including our own Highways England Ontology) capture not just the properties of assets but how the relate to their wider environmental and operational context (e.g. “span is corroded by road salts, damaged by vehicle incursions, is maintained when the flange has 20%+ corrosion, and supports a flow of 50,000 vehicles per day travelling on the M25 (as well as a broadband internet cable) causing significant safety and KPI impact in the event of failure”). Creating these data models demands the creation and maintenance of a deep ‘knowledge graph’ of the organisation.

[Ian Gordon]

Good distinctions. Twins FTW!

[Ian Gordon]

Thanks Tom, let me know if you do find that talk!

[Ian Gordon]

How useful do you think that the parallels in sectors such as manufacturing and aerospace are likely to prove in infrastructure @Peter?

It feels like the established use cases for Digital Twins are usually twins for ‘things’ rather than ‘systems’.  Does the twin approach for a factory (e.g. a system of defined things) translate to the twin approach for an infrastructure management organisation (e.g. a system of people who manage things)?

[Ian Gordon]

24 minutes ago, holgerkessler said:

Good morning, new to this group – and hoping to contribute more and more in the coming months….

I would be very interested to stay in touch with both Network Rail and Highways England regarding your underground asset data.

 

Welcome!

Do you have any standard specification of information that you believe should be captured for such assets?

[Ian Gordon]

Andrew… We’ve been thinking about the business use of the ontology quite a lot. As you suggested, it’s going to seem pretty esoteric to the vast majority of HE staff. Indeed, we had a bit of a running joke within the modelling team that every other day of building the Ontology brought on a existential crisis.

Where I’ve got to is that the Ontology should act as a force for conformance across the organisation, but may not often be used directly. Rather, most of the time if will exert its influence by providing structure to other artefacts (e.g. logical data models, data catalogues, low level designs etc.).

I find that in HE very often systems are designed without aligning to any business logic. For example CRM systems are designed without clear definitions of ‘customer’, mutually incompatible network models are created without common definitions. I hope that if we ensure that system design can be traced by to a common set of definitions of the data entities that the organisation manages, then it will be far easier to share and align data both within and outside of HE.

Part of this means being a little circumspect about how much detail to include in the Ontology. If we try to capture and define 1000s of data entities it will be very hard to maintain the Ontology or align with physical systems. But if we aim to capture and maintain the top ~100 data entities, and the crucial relationships sitting between them, then this should be sufficient to guide the organisation without creating crippling bureaucracy! This is also why it’s important to have clear hierarchies, not just of entities but also of relationships (e.g. what are the use cases associated with the relationships that we are mapping).

I like the sound of your capturing meta deta in your Data Lake, we’ve been debating how best to do this ourselves.

[Ian Gordon]

32 minutes ago, simon.evans@arup.com said:

Hi Ian,

I am also interested.

simon.evans@arup.com / SimonEvans

Thanks,

Simon

Nope probs Simon, we’ll hook you up shortly.

[Ian Gordon]

20 minutes ago, Liz Varga said:

Thanks for this. I’d like access to the HE developments and to contribute where possible.  User name (also my email)  l.varga@ucl.ac.uk

We’ve been looking at infrastructure ontologies as part of DAFNI https://www.dafni.ac.uk/ who have a high performance computing capability to provide data, models and visualisation on infrastructure for research use.

Thank you

Liz Varga

Liz, sounds really interesting, would be great to hear more about Dafni

[Ian Gordon]

On 3/7/2020 at 9:45 PM, G. Lewis said:

Hi Ian

I would be interested also.

username is G.Lewis

Regards

Graham Lewis

 

No problems, we’ll add you shortly

[Ian Gordon]

On 2/20/2020 at 10:03 AM, DRossiter87 said:

Hi Ian, Thank you I’d be very interested in having a look.  I’ve just signed-up to Protege, username: DRossiter87

Will sort that out for you. What’s your email?