5 Ways Digital Twins Can Action Real Change

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

In the buzzword heavy industry that is technology Digital Twins have reached unicorn status; used within organisations and dropped into conversations to show street cred and innovation in an era laden with version numbers: Industry 4.0, Digital 4.0, etc.

But what are they really? Simulations was the pre-buzzword-hype-term, perhaps a slick marketing term for consultancies and vendors to push their wares and services, or a useful way to embed meaningful improvements in organisations? Sometimes they feel as fragile as a whisper. Any real questioning and they vanish.

I’m firmly in the camp of embedding meaningful improvements.

Here are f̵i̵v̵e̵ s̵e̵v̵e̵n̵ eight things you need to include in Digital Twin implementations, and I’ll provide detail on each in this series:

1. Built by experts in a business
2. Encapsulate best of business process/knowledge
3. Resemble Russian Dolls (Digital Twins are composed of others)
4. Are distributed and able to self orchestrate
5. Have the ability to control their environment
6. Solid business case/outcome
7. Great customer/end user engagement
8. Integrated

What are your thoughts, are there any missing?

Thoughts, machinations and opinions are my own and not the views of my employer. I’m also on Twitter.