Open Source Drives Digital Twin Adoption
CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL TWINS The challenges to adopt Digital Twin in the industry can be summarized as follows :
• Lack of a common definition and understanding of the Digital Twin concept : The term “ Digital Twin ” has been coined in academia in 2003 , and ever since , many different definitions and flavors of it have emerged , which usually focus on particular use cases in which a Digital Twin is adopted . However , there is also the view that the concept of Digital Twin has existed in industry for several decades , under different names . The lack of a common definition and understanding of the Digital Twin concept risks it being degraded to the level of a buzzword . Various consortiums such as IIC , Plattform Industrie 4.0 and DTC have tried to address these challenges .
• Backend data integration : Digital twin is a means for providing holistic access to the otherwise dispersed and siloed data . This requires architectures and solutions for integrating data within and across boundaries of organizations , dealing with heterogeneity of data sources , data formats , APIs and security rules .
• Standardized information model : To increase interoperability across data sources within and across the boundaries of organizations , standardized information , standardized meta-models , and APIs are required to describe Digital Twins . As for other industrial practices , companies may face the “ standardization deadlock ” problem , where on one hand there might be insufficient practical experience to drive standardization needs , and on the other hand the practical experiences might lead to proprietary solutions . This requires that architectures and solutions adopt the “ on-demand interoperability ”, where proprietary Digital Twins can be translated to standard ones on-demand , upon the availability of standards .
Finally , as the fast-changing market is accelerating the innovation cycle , it is crucial to ensure the adoption of a new technology , such as the Digital Twin , as fast as possible . Otherwise , Digital Twin might lose its momentum in making an impact on the current cycle of digital transformation . Although current standardization efforts driven by multiple organizations around the globe aim at establishing the Digital Twin and its adoption in the market , the standardization processes are usually lengthy and slow . However , an aligned collaboration between these organizations could potentially accelerate this process and would lead to higher quality . To address this challenge , an open collaborative approach to leverage the synergies of these organizations and make the standardization more agile is important and beneficial to a faster adoption of Digital Twins . We introduce and discuss such an approach in the following sections .
- 22 - March 2021