Successfully implementing your digital twin

A digital enabler for real-world change

A digital twin lets you optimise almost anything — a single machine or workflow, a company or plant, even an entire city. It does this by providing real-time information about the world as it is now, alongside predictive insights into the way things could be.

Digital twins vs. digital twinning

The terms “digital twin” and “digital twinning” are often used interchangeably. But in reality, they’re very different concepts—and it’s important to recognise the difference.

Digital twinning is the process of digitising the physical environment. It’s a continuous journey that requires collecting and analysing large volumes of data to improve the physical environment around us. It’s a strategic transformation, and a process managed at the highest levels of a business or organisation.

Digital twins on the other hand are the outputs of digital twinning. Each digital twin is a digital reflection of an individual asset, process or system generated through the digital twinning process. By pursuing a strategy of digital twinning, you’ll eventually build up a vast ecosystem of digital twins.

The Royal HaskoningDHV digital twin view

A digital twin has two purposes:

1. help us understand the physical world by providing accurate insights into the status of the entity it represents
2. support informed decision-making that helps us adapt and change that physical reality to make it better.

To deliver these values, digital twins consist of various building blocks. These building blocks, and their underlying technologies, need to be implemented as part of your digital transformation, combining people, processes and technology.

Physical world

A digital twin creates a highly accurate, virtual version of the physical world, informed by real-time data capture. This virtual representation shows things as they are now, in great detail, but also how things will be in the future.

Digital twin

You can program your digital twin to simulate the outcomes you’d like to achieve, and gain insight into the actions necessary to make them a reality. This allows you to make more informed decisions about changes to your physical environments, with visibility of their implications before you put plans in action.

Future physical world

Successfully implementing the right changes requires knowledge and experience of the real world. We’ll work alongside you to help incorporate your digital twin into your decision-making process, so the human and digital elements complement each other perfectly.