Why smaller, simpler Digital Twins might be the answer

Read time: ~2-3 mins

Digital Twins (Twins) are well and truly past the peak of the hype curve, and as such, we are consistently seeing the conversation change from 'what if' to 'how to' as we transition out of R&D and into operational expectations. Thankfully, this initial experience has helped us see patterns of success and failure, and in particular, the decision between building large all-encompassing Twins of (say) a whole mine site, or, smaller individual equipment or process-focused Twins. So, the question is... which is better?

History repeats

The hype around software in the ‘80s and ‘90s was similar to how industries wanted to improve, streamline and automate their business. The first software that came out was basic and had limited options, but businesses were eager to try it out and see how it could improve their operations. Over time, software evolved to meet the growing needs of businesses and became more specialised and niche-focused to better serve different types of companies.

As the market's needs grew, so did the need for specialised software systems that were effective for newer, more niche use cases. All-encompassing platforms required a lot of effort to keep them functioning effectively as the business grew and changed, and often did not allow for a particular business process. This led to the explosion of different specialised software products and siloed systems, causing frustration for companies who became tired of double handling data and disjointed processes. Today, integrations are no longer a nice feature but an expectation for every software system, though the interconnection of data alone has not solved the disjointed process challenge and often results in many versions of the same data across an organisation.

Moon shots vs Mundane

The emergence of Twins is following a similar journey. In the early days, many Twins were "all-encompassing" but overly complex to build and manage, and held little tangible value to end users. These early use cases demonstrated the potential of the paradigm but have often failed to become the change agents they were envisioned to be. As the expectation of Twins increases, there is more pressure for them to deliver tangible outcomes and ROI for businesses. As such, there are individual departments who have specific problems that a more localised twin would fix, resulting in a faster and less risky ROI on their investment. A reduced scope (as well as the growing capabilities of OT/IT integrations) means there is less burden to maintain the Twin’s integrity and subsequent value to users. For example, implementing, adopting and maintaining a SCADA-based Twin focused on supporting the daily stand-ups of the production team is a far less risky and faster time-to-value investment than spending $10 million on a complex 3D model of site that has 20+ integrations and needs a fulltime team to maintain it. In today’s cost-conscious world, multi-year implementations run the very real risk that by the time the solution is ready to deliver value, technology and processes and the underlying assets have already moved on.

Ecosystem vs Monolith

The solution to better virtual / physical connections at scale may be the ecosystem of discreet twins to create critical mass, rather than “eating the elephant” with a single monolith that needs to be all things to all people. Interconnectivity and interoperability at the granular level enables solutions to be focused on specific high value problems, while working together across disparate assets and processes. Larger, more encompassing solutions have the potential to drive digital transformation initiatives, but only with dedicated investment and support from the highest levels, and only with a focus on solving actual problems at the tactical level. Twins do have the potential to change the way we work for the better, but process, people and change management will always be harder when approached as “innovation” instead of improvement.

Click below to see how smaller, similar digital Twins could work for you today: