© Andriy Bezuglov
DIGITAL TWINS
DIGITAL TWINS AND
RUSSIAN DOLLS
Digital twins could revolutionise industry, but will bring complications.
Mark Wharton and Ali Nicholl from Iotics look at the issues.
In recent years we have seen
the rise of digital twins, with
implementations expanding
beyond simple visualisations
to through-life ‘live’ versions
of entire processes, assets and
environments. This new
generation of digital data
twins, which model entire data estates
and interact in real-time across corporate
boundaries, will fully-deliver on the
promises and potential once they can
meaningfully and securely interact with
each other in a dynamic model of the
world.
However, as interactions between twins
increases, so do the potential
complications. Paul Miller at Forrester, in
his paper “Untangle the Digital Twin as
Part of Your Product Strategy”, warns of
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the need for users to be aware of potential
complications that arise from the ‘Russian
Nesting Doll’ nature of twins. These
Nesting Dolls nest inside one another,
each revealing a smaller figure inside it.
Digital twins as virtual versions of
assets, systems and processes can be seen
in a similar light. For example, twins of
individual components (fan blades), form
complex assets (turbines), nested inside
large assets (engines), inside asset
platforms (planes), which then form part
of a service (airline route), as part of a
digital ecosystem (transportation). Each
of these twins is equally valid, capable of
interacting across corporate boundaries
and has value – albeit that this may vary
depending on a user’s role in the supply
and demand chain, needs and focus.
The potential complications of nested
twins, especially those whose constituent
twins are owned and operated by multiple
disparate entities, and the difficulties of
navigating or mapping their interrelations
and interactions, are not to be
underestimated.
The complexity of nested twins
Russian Nesting Dolls are a good analogy
for the challenges emerging with twins.
One twin on its own is a useful thing, but
they come into their own when they form
a digital ecosystem of twins: in a domain,
such as a smart city; or an enterprise
where barriers between silos can be
broken down; or in a consortium of
collaborating enterprises where relevant
data can be shared securely between the
participants.
The twin-based digital ecosystems
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