Anyone being slammed with Digital Twin marketing?

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

I thought I would share with the community one of my recent articles on my thoughts on Digital Twins. There has been a lot of marketing over the last couple of years from software vendors pushing their solutions as Digital Twins. Have a read of my article and let me know whether you are being impacted by this yet from your clients.

https://www.skewed.com.au/blog/digital-twins-%E2%80%93-latest-marketing-catch-phrase#.Y1ytDHZBwmA

[Nathan Hildebrandt · Accepted solution]

If you are at any BIM events like BrisBIM, BILT, or The Digital Twin Partnership events then you will know all about it!

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

@mthd here is a link to the BrisBIM event in September that I recorded about the progress in the UK and Digital Twins. The podcast will be out in a few weeks' time.

https://www.skewed.com.au/media/webinars/brisbim-special-event-september-2022

[Jim Allen]

That was really interesting - thanks for sharing, I understand more about it now. 

There does seem to have been a lot of vague hype published about it.

From the seminar, it seems that Digital Twin simply refers to 'data-driven mathematical modelling and simulation', and isn't necessarily linked to BIM.

It is something that already happens with things like environmental modelling, lighting simulations, flood risk analysis, CFD analysis etc. It's the way we are increasingly working by default for large commercial developments isn't it?

At least that's how it works here in the UK, but I don't think we are in any way unique in this regard.

Calling this stuff 'digital twins' seems to be overselling the principle more than a bit!

A bit of snappy jargon someone came up with that doesn't meaningfully describe what it is about.

It's a bit like the misuse of terms AI and ML - in practice this generally amounts to algorithmically-driven decisions, and in most cases there's no 'intelligent' decision making in the way humans think of it, just a series of formulas which may or may not be that complex.

So yes - data-driven mathematical modelling and simulation is going to be the way we all work in future at least for large projects, and is the next evolution from BIM. 

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

Some software vendors are rebadging BIM as digital twins which aligns with the 

It is something that already happens with things like environmental modelling, lighting simulations, flood risk analysis, CFD analysis etc. It's the way we are increasingly working by default for large commercial developments isn't it?

Digital Twins are more so about the built asset with sensors and data from the asset providing real time or near real time information to enable better decisions to be made in how the asset is managed and maintained. The key to it all is to make sure you see who is speaking about digital twins and the company they come from. Then you can determine whether they are being real about it, or whether they are rebadging, as I like to call it.

[mthd]

I might be a bit slow on the uptake but I see what you mean by DT marketing.

TV adds are presenting more things with gaming Avatars. VR and RL (Real Life) appears to be the basis for the DT ideology.

People who are heavily into gaming have a DT, the gaming identity as represented by their unique Avatar and the person they are in the real world.

Even right here on Archicad talk we are our own digital twin.

My twin wrote this not me lol !

[Jim Allen]

Well - not really, unless I missed a subtlety of Alexandra Bolton's presentation...

Didn't she say that they are also being used in financial markets?

It's not all about sensors and the built environment at all according to her, that is a subset of the field.

[Nathan Hildebrandt]

It is the data and lessons learnt from the building that the insurers and financiers are using because the information about the building is more accurate. So they know exactly what the building is built from and they know the usage and efficiencies or lack of it in all assets. 

They can then provide lower interest rates to assets they know are lower risk. And also the same for insurance. Over time the amount of asset data that is collected will then inform their pricing policy and will also drive changes in design to deliver assets that have less financial risk.