Dispelling the disillusion: Demystifying the digital twin
Disappointed, dissatisfied and disaffected with digital twins? Andy Wohlsperger demystifies the technology.
When digital twins first entered the market, they were met with the excitement and high expectations that often accompany new technological innovations. Providers and vendors naturally sought to capitalise on this enthusiasm, often promising significant cost savings in facility operations and maintenance.
Over a decade later, the mistakes made in those early days have become apparent. Instances of overpromising, unmanaged expectations, and lack of clarity around costs have led to jaded clients and asset owners.
Efforts are now needed to clarify and effectively communicate the potential of digital twins. How can we, as an industry, remove the buzz from the buzzword and effectively convey the potential of digital twin technology? The term itself is challenging due to the lack of a clear definition, which contributes to confusion and misunderstanding. Our experience in working with different customers at a global scale has allowed us to eliminate distractions regarding what works and what doesn’t, providing us with the expertise to understand what delivers value, prioritise client outcomes, and partner with clients to deliver cost-effective solutions.
Global excellence
AECOM demonstrates global excellence and reach through client delivery, thought leadership, and innovation in digital twins. Due to the diversity of sectors AECOM serves, the tools developed adapt across diverse sectors, providing robust, open reporting of key project data appropriate to the audience. This makes AECOM an ideal partner for complex digital transformations.
By leveraging digital technologies, AECOM enhances funding mechanisms and market differentiation, ensuring smarter, more efficient systems post-construction, positioning ourselves as a leader in the infrastructure sector.
Dynamic and connected
Digital twins can best be defined as dynamic, connected digital representations of real-world entities that enhance decision-making, drive action, improve outcomes, and enable predictive analytics. Success depends on developing them with a specific use case in mind, providing solutions to clients’ current or future problems.
The industry’s scepticism stems from how digital twin technology was initially pitched — product-based and focused on building space. This led to overengineered, one-size-fits-all solutions that often didn’t suit specific tasks, raising unrealistic expectations and ultimately disappointing clients.
Integrated solutions implementation
As a systems integrator across sectors, AECOM’s unique value proposition for deploying digital twins at scale is not only the diversity of the services that we provide, but also the scope and complexity of the programs of work that we deliver. AECOM’s approach to digital twins combines domain expertise, strong collaboration with global technology partners, and partnerships with key industry organizations to drive standards in implementation, execution and operations of technology ecosystems.
As an example, we have worked to create digital twins for water, energy management and sustainability, and urban space as outlined below.
Our Global Digital Leader, Mike Karl is a key contributing member of SWAN Smart Water Networks Forum and has co-published a digital twin values guide for the industry at large. His forward-thinking approach and perspective have helped us deliver digital twins for Scottish Water.
Our Sustainable Legacies strategy is fundamental to the way we deliver work for clients all over the globe. Our deep partnership with the National Renewables Energy Lab allowed us to put that strategy into practice with a campus wide implementation of a digital twin that focused on energy management, sustainability, and the reduction of carbon across all their facilities. This model is being reviewed for the potential to scale across multiple Department of Education labs within the United States.
Our involvement in the development of Europe’s first smart canal in Glasgow, partnering with Autodesk, highlights our ability to create a dynamic digital representation of the canal system, enabling real-time monitoring and management of key operations and environmental factors.
Enhancing value
At AECOM, digital twins are developed as ecosystems of different data sources, harmoniously brought together to resolve business needs, to provide a solution that prioritises resolving the specific use case or business need. We move away from multipurpose, off-the-rack solutions to more tailored, quick-time-to-value approaches.
Achieving value for the end user involves determining the necessary interface to provide required information, reducing components to their simplest form. Starting light, with a vision and long-term strategy, allows continuous growth and integration of new technologies and data sources over time.
Integration of systems is consistently improving. The ability to bring different data sets together is continuously advancing. This enhances the value proposition of digital twins by improving how they are perceived and function holistically. By placing digital twins in their operational context and considering external factors, we maximise their effectiveness, for customers and communities.
The role of Geographic Information Systems
As discussed, an asset does not operate in isolation, even if it’s a bespoke piece of infrastructure. There will inevitably be external factors that impact operations, planning, and other processes. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are integral components of digital twins, unlocking value for end users. GIS and the geographic approach incorporate digital twins into a spatial context, enabling links to external systems. This provides a pathway to a “twin-of-twins” mindset, which we at AECOM call a ‘distributed twin.’
The concept of extended reality (XR) further enhances the digital twin’s ability to connect with its user base. XR encompasses virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, making the digital twin more interactive and immersive for the end user. By integrating XR, digital twins can provide a more collaborative and engaging experience, allowing users to visualise and interact with data in a more meaningful way.
As you can see, digital twins can be used for more than just buildings. It’s a common misconception that the technology needs to be applied to a 3D model or visual representation of a building or facility. Instead, digital twin technology can be applied to planning, design and construction, customer experience, maintenance and driving decarbonisation. By leveraging GIS and XR, we can create more comprehensive and effective digital twins that address a wide range of use cases and deliver enhanced value to end users.
Tailoring a digital twin
Indeed, the great benefit of a digital twin is its ability to be tailored across an organisation’s various functions. Identifying these functions is crucial to maximising the technology’s value. Instead of focusing on using digital twins for a single department, it is essential to explore use cases that are relevant across the organisation to realise integrated opportunities and benefits. By examining one function in isolation, you are less likely to achieve your goals, and digital twins may not be feasible or worth the effort.
In short, while the scepticism surrounding digital twins is understandable, the issue lies in how they were initially defined and marketed. The value that digital twins can provide is very real, but the focus needs to be on the use case and the functionality of the solution, prioritising business needs. With great excitement comes great expectations, but we must prioritise great delivery above all.