Companies deploying digital twin technologies reaping significant benefits: Dr. Richard Soley

The Object Management Group (OMG), with founders Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease and Microsoft, recently announced the formation of Digital Twin Consortium. Digital twin technology enables companies to head off problems before they occur, prevent downtime, improve the customer experience, develop new opportunities, drive innovation and performance and plan for the future using simulations.

Members of Digital Twin Consortium will collaborate across multiple industries to learn from each other and develop and apply best practices. This new open membership organization will drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security and interoperability to help advance the use of digital twin technology in many industries from aerospace to natural resources.

Here, Dr. Richard Soley, Executive Director, Digital Twin Consortium, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: What is the purpose of the Digital Twin Consortium? How different is it from the others?

Dr. Richard Soley: The twin purposes are to accelerate the use of digital twins in market where they're underused, and amplify the interoperability and portability of digital twins, especially between markets. The more complete charter is available at https://www.digitaltwinconsortium.org/pdf/DTC-Charter.pdf. We are not familiar with another organization with those aims.

DQ: Why is digital twin difficult due to lack of understanding and standardization?

Dr. Richard Soley: In some markets (e.g., large manufactured objects and semiconductor chips), the digital twins have been around for decades, causing unnecessary fragmentation of approaches. the Digital Twin Consortium exists to correct that with open source software.

DQ: How is digital twin technology changing the face of manufacturing?

Dr. Richard Soley: The ability to model and simulate large manufactured devices, before building them or apart from manufacturing them, allows the organization to correct and optimize the manufacture of devices at much lower cost, and predict failure of the manufactured device, minimizing downtime and maintenance cost.

DQ: How is the ecosystem for digital twin experts being developed? Who all have joined so far?

Dr. Richard Soley: Many companies are committed to using and learning about digital twin technologies to gain enhanced insight into the performance of their processes, systems, services, and products in multiple real-time applications and environments to improve efficiency and quality are joining the consortium.

Companies on the forefront of deploying digital twin technologies are already reaping significant benefits and discovering new opportunities that are changing their business models. Those who implement the technology within their enterprises will gain a competitive advantage over those who do not.

The technology enables companies to head off problems before they occur, prevent downtime, improve the customer experience, develop new opportunities, drive innovation and performance and plan for the future using simulations.

Members of the Digital Twin Consortium collaborate with the experienced technologists, physical product experts and data scientists, across multiple industries, to learn from each other and develop and apply best practices, which accelerate the adoption of digital twin technology across their enterprises.

Users of digital twins are encouraged to join to reduce the risk of using digital twins within their business and maximize the benefits of digital twins by leveraging the Digital Twin Consortium ecosystem. This includes working with leaders in the field, being at the forefront of innovation and driving requirements for standards.

More than 50 members signed up in the first few days and growing daily. https://www.digitaltwinconsortium.org/cgi-bin/dtcmembersearch.cgi

DQ: Why are folks like Rockwell, Emerson, etc. not part of this? Or, will they come in later?

Dr. Richard Soley: We are talking to everyone and open to all. The Consortium reached almost 50 members in the first few days and watch this space!

The Consortium will discuss and deliver:

* A shared terminology for digital twins and related technology.

* Shared guidance and best practices for delivering digital twins across industrial sectors, focusing on raising the level of the use and understanding of the technology, especially in sectors that are less mature.

* Support for the adoption of the digital twin process by collating the value driven out by proponents of those processes.

* Open source reference implementations of digital twins within and across various vertical markets.

* Recognition of common attributes of digital twins to codify requirements for standards for digital twins for portability and interoperability within and across vertical markets, and the development of substantive relationships with leading standards organizations to realize those standards.

* Sufficient guidance and open source code to enable tool chain interoperability.

* Sufficient guidance to move each industry from a fragmented, opaque and one-off project-based approach to a systems-based way creating, recognizing, disseminating and embodying organizational knowledge, enabling continuous improvement.

* Identification of joint development activities on a non-competitive basis that everyone needs to do, such as security, hyperscale infrastructure, and so on.

* Assistance for regulatory and government bodies to alter their existing procedures to accept digital exchange with digital twins to derive value from the approach, and shorten approval times for the industry.