Digital Twins, zBlog

An In-Depth Guide to Digital Twins of an Organisation

digital-twin

One of the most interesting and exciting updates in the tech space is the emergence of Digital Twins or Digital Twin Technologies. If you have come across these terms and have found yourself confused, worry not – through this article, we’ll walk you through everything you need to know about Digital Twins and Digital Twins of an Organisation.

Gartner defines a Digital Twin as “a digital representation of a real-world entity or system”. To make things more specific, digital twin technology can be understood as the ability to create virtual representations that perfectly twin (and simulate) both physical components and dynamics as well as the behavior of how IoT devices perform and function throughout their lifecycle.

While this may sound complicated, it is achieved simply by collecting and interpreting large datasets from sensors to realize the sameness between the digital twin and the real-world entity.

Digital Twin technology has been instrumental in the aviation and aerospace industry for quite some time now. However, only recently has this become a significant development across all sectors thanks to IoT and Industry 4.0. The main benefits that Digital Twins have offered across different domains include:

  • Offering actionable insights related to operation inadequacies.
  • Improving equipment lifespan using parameter optimization, preventive maintenance, and other stewardship.
  • Reducing the downtime.
  • Developing superior designs and implementations using the operation data from RnD.

In 2022, almost everything your mind can comprehend can have a digital twin. Think office buildings, footwear, water filtration systems, presentation rooms – you name it. Taking this approach further, businesses are investing heavily into creating a Digital Twin for their organization – called Digital Twin of an Organisation (DTO).

The Digital Twin of an Organisation provides a virtual model for the entire business. In doing so, DTO enables business leaders to better analyze and tweak business processes and operations to reach their goals. DTOs work with dynamic virtual representations and provide the following operational entities to an organization:

  • Accurate digital representation of processes, employees, assets, and more, as they exist in the physical world. In doing so, it enables:
    • Seamless coordination among people of an organization.
    • Identification of an organization’s weaknesses or shortcomings.
  • A centralized platform to provide training and learning to employees.
  • Insightful predictive analytics about:
    • Changes in processes, services, or products, and related outcomes.
    • Risks and costs of adopting new processes.

In 2020, the global DTO market was valued at $3 billion, and it is estimated to reach ±$50 billion by 2026. This staggering growth and jump in numbers point towards one thing – organizations have been able to leverage DTO for their benefit. Let’s look at the top use cases that make DTO a lucrative option for any organization in 2022.

#1: Value-oriented portfolio management

Portfolio managers can benefit from using digital twins to better manage and plan the impact of programs and projects on the organization.

#2: Procedural and work instructions

A DTO is perfect for creating and maintaining processes and work instructions to optimize quality, safety, delivery while reducing costs. The ability to derive strategies and instructions directly from a digital image promises higher consistency. Even in highly efficient production environments, organizations can adequately use a DTO to detect sub optimizations and work on them.

#3: A step towards digital transformation

A business requires three key elements to implement a digital transformation. Those are:

  • Principles – how is digital business success measured? How is the digital business developed?
  • Design – what is the entire digital business?
  • Execution plan – how can this design be implemented successfully?

With a DTO in place, businesses find themselves closer to digital transformation. With all the entities digitized for the better, organizations better understand their processes and activities, which gives them a chance to stay on top of their organization’s transformation.

In conclusion, Digital Twin technologies have proved highly beneficial to organizations far and wide. The forward-looking businesses have already adopted this technology by creating a DTO for themselves, which has undoubtedly provided them with all sorts of business benefits and opportunities. It’s time you take that step, too!