Open Source Drives Digital Twin Adoption
DRIVING DIGITAL TWINS THE OPEN SOURCE WAY
In 2019 , the Gartner Hyper Cycle listed Digital Twins as being on the “ Peak of Inflated Expectations .” Some still feel it is just a buzzword but the world is moving on . Digital twins now can be reflected on the “ Slope of Enlightenment ”. In 2020 , several new organizations were founded or kicked-off to establish Digital Twin technology in industrial settings . Hence , the aim is clear : Smooth the way to reach the “ Plateau of Productivity .”
A remarkable realization common to almost all of the Digital Twin related organizations is the consideration of Open Source development as an important pillar for promoting the faster adoption of Digital Twins .
These organizations , in addition to IIC , Plattform Industrie 4.0 , and Open Industry 4.0 Alliance , are involved in the development and promotion of Digital Twins and are briefly described below . They include : the OMP , the DTC , GAIA-X , Clean Energy and The Smart Manufacturing Innovation Institute ( CESMII ) 16 and the IDTA . Although CESMII has been founded earlier , CESMII is additionally listed in this section because it recently started Open Source activities .
Furthermore , a remarkable trend in the general Open Source community is that , increasingly , they do not aim just for Open Source code development , but for Open Source code and open specification development together .
For the Linux Foundation and Eclipse , it was a learning curve to not just focus on Open Source code development . The Joint Development Foundation ( JDF ) that focuses on open specification development joined the Linux Foundation in 2018 17 . Eclipse defined its own specification process in 2019 18 . The Internet Engineering Task Force ( IETF ) also identified Open Source as an essential development model to overcome the challenges of the tedious traditional standards processes and keep them on pace with fast innovation cycles 14 15 .
OASIS Open Foundation follows a similar hybrid approach to support open collaboration for developing standards 19 . Hence , the understanding now seems to be that standardization and Open Source are coming closer together to be more effective in both developing and promoting open specifications , open standards and Open Source .
16 https :// www . cesmii . org / production-of-zero-defect-zd-slabs /
17 https :// www . linuxfoundation . org / en / press-release / jdf-joins-lf-family /
18 https :// www . eclipse . org / community / eclipse _ newsletter / 2019 / january / EFSP _ vs _ JCP . php
19 https :// www . oasis-open . org
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