[Kevin Reeves]

Hi @Tom Henderson,

Really good video, apologies I missed the session earlier in the week.

Have techUK come across anyone in the tech community thinking about the ‘big picture’ and the value from scaled and / or federated digital twins?

Traditional business approaches promote focusing on a specific problem or challenge to develop an initial business case to get moving, though on an individual basis the business case might not stack up,  I wonder if this is restricting value and progress…….

As an example the World Economic Forum recently stated that Covid19 is expected to cost between $8.1 trillion and $15.8 trillion, yet the preventative measures are estimated between $22.2 billion and $30.7 billion annually……

Given we know the cost of climate change from previous extreme weather events, do we need to ‘think big’ about the value creation that Digital Twin’s can bring at the macro level to unlock the investment at the micro level.  This often gets referred to as ‘boiling the ocean’ (I am accused of this on an almost daily basis ?) and is certainly counter intuitive through a traditional business lens, though I do wonder if we are constraining progress by thinking to small.

Interested to get your thoughts on this, though appreciate it is a rather thorny topic!

Regards

Kevin

 

 

[Kevin Reeves]

Thank you to cdbb and the Twin Hub for the opportunity to present.

Kevin

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Tom,

The open group site is without doubt the best resource. Being an open source framework many of the tools and information are free:

https://www.opengroup.org/togaf

There are also globally recognised accreditation’s to demonstrate competency, making this a very valuable framework. 

This is not the only enterprise framework of course, Zachman, Kimbal and others are also globally recognised with robust industry standards.

Regards

Kevin

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Steven,

I think that the industry approach to Health & Safety is perhaps the best example of where we have ‘done it before’. The processes, information and governance are all pretty much standard regardless of which company you work for.

This common approach and language has been instrumental to the significant improvements in H&S and something we can look to when assessing the value of scaled digital twins from a national perspective.

Imagine if other business functions aligned in the same way, the NDT will effectively become an industry black box enabling the entire value chain to continuously improve, in the same way Airlines use  ‘black boxes’ to deliver improvements.  It would in effect move us towards a platform based industry, that evolves with the overall economy creating a level playing field for healthy competition.

Whilst difficult to see and even harder to articulate, the value from creating a National Digital Twin is pretty much limitless and requires top down approaches to ensure UK Gov, regulators and NGO’s can deliver strategic outcomes, plus the bottom up approach to ensure tactical needs are met.

More needs to be done to enable cross organisational integration, though the IMF is starting to tackle this challenge and is a must do to enable industry transformation to take place.

Regards

Kevin

 

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Tom,

The Gemini Principles are effectively employed in all the digital work we undertake, good architectural practice promotes the same objectives.

Ensuring a clear purpose is so vitally important, with all the buzz around Digital Twin’s it is easy for organisations to ‘dive in’ where a good starting point is to think about how Digital Twin’s can help achieve strategic outcomes. Defining the purpose is key to unlocking value and delivering trust.

The A14 Integrated Delivery Team developed a digital twin of the production process and all partners learned from the journey. Initially people were somewhat reluctant to trust the insights being presented to them via dashboards, GIS and other apps. However after the first 6 months that trust started to build and the project team could see the value in the transparency the insights delivered. This has been so successful it is now being considered as a ‘blueprint’ by Highways England for their complex schemes.

Many organisations also have to go through a process of data cleansing or transformation to delivery trustworthy insight and this should not be underestimated. It also requires a consistent approach to information management and is best aligned to standard products or MMC’s to deliver maximum value.

As a guiding set of rules and the start of a framework, the Gemini Principles are a solid foundation.

Regards

Kevin

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Katherine,

Our cultural journey within Costain started some 14 years ago, initially we employed some external consultants which certainly made a difference, however we felt that cultural change needed to come from within. We setup a team of behavioural science experts initially focused on health and safety which had been flat lining for a few years and results were seriously impressive.

Using behavioural science techniques to drive positive, rather than negative re-enforcement transformed our H&S performance and the initiative was so successful it turned into an award winning service. 

We now apply this same approach to technology blended with a mix of agile user engagement. We find that by getting the end users involved from day one, understanding their challenges and focusing on making their lives easier, ensures a smoother transition into BAU.  The iterative agile approach also means the end users are effectively trained in how to use the end solution as they have helped design it !!  

In terms of skills we have partnered with the CITB to help shape a new Digital Leadership programme feeding into the CITB’s digital skills and competency framework, this provides structured learning and certification for key skills that suit all abilities. Early days however the CITB have been very impressive.

This is not to say cultural adoption has been solved, there are still many obstacles and there is no silver bullet, however these approaches have certainly helped us to date. 

I can put you in touch with the relevant people in Costain if you want to discuss in more detail,  we are always keen to learn from others as part of the ongoing cultural challenge.

Regards

Kevin

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Tom,

I am not sure there is a specific answer, most organisations I speak too are really strong in certain areas and less mature in others.

Water companies for example have extremely mature operational systems, with scaled telemetry and detailed twins of sites with real time / historical information, alarms, event management, analysis etc etc. I guess what limits the value is that these systems are often segregated, intentionally for resilience and security, however many water companies are starting to ‘join the digital dots’ to enable whole catchment optimisation rather than individual sites, which is amazing and hopefully represented in the presentation.

What is really encouraging is the recognition of the value to enterprise, Network Rail for example have a very ambitious plan to join the dots across their enterprise, with some excellent capability already being deployed. They see the value in using the information from across their business to aid strategic decision making, where as much of the insight today in many organisations is at the tactical level.

HS2 are another great example of a forward thinking enterprise who are developing some incredible digital twin capability and expanding their thinking all the time, such progression is very encouraging.

The sheer amount of progress with BIM as the foundation is really very impressive, I think as an industry we can be very self critical and sometimes miss the amazing work underway.

None of this could be done without collaboration and all clients are mature enough to ask for support where needed, this behaviour then feeds down into the supply chain. In alliances and JV’s it is best person for the role and this works, makes sure the right expertise is available to drive the right outcomes.

Hope that helps !

Kevin

 

[Kevin Reeves]

Hi Steven,

From experiences to date the water sector is very well engaged, we ran a workshop at the start of the year that incorporated UK Gov, academia and industry partners which was received really very well. Certainly client side the appetite is there though understanding where to start can be a challenge including how to frame the business case.

Engaging the wider supply chain is itself a mammoth task and takes time, however we are starting to see some small successes. A challenge for smaller businesses is the cost of developing their part of a digital twin so being client led, where potentially the client provides the platform / solutions, can make a real difference.

We have taken this approach on a highways project and it worked really well.

Overall I think clients leading the way is vital to success and I think most clients I talk too are behind Digital Twins, very exciting times !

Hope that answers your question.

Regards

Kevin

[Kevin Reeves]

Good Morning All,

Hope everyone is keeping safe and well.

Nice easy questions please as back from hols this week !

Kevin