Geospatial Thinking - a Digital Twin Framework

An outline of a framework for developing & managing the capabilities that underpin digital twins.

It’s fair to say the Digital Twin space is a bit confusing. For example here is the wikipedia definition:

“A digital twin is a virtual representation that serves as the real-time digital counterpart of a physical object or process.”

All fine and good but a somewhat vague definition. Rather than argue the definition and go down that rabbit hole I'm going to accept it as is and approach the topic from a capability perspective. This article focuses on two key frameworks, people and digital twin development capability.

Setting the scene

Digital twins represent new & enhanced capabilities that are part of a broader digital transformation going on across many sectors with an overarching strategic objective of more/better/enhanced data-driven decision making! I would love a $1 for every time I have heard that phrase!

Digital Capabilities for a digital workforce

While it is often the case that your agency or business has some peaks of excellence the real multiples for digital is when you lift your entire workforce. What people capabilities underpin data-driven decision making? The image below is my take on digital enablement.

The core people-centric capability set that drives data-driven decision making includes:

• Critical Thinking - the ability to analyse facts, evidence, observations & arguments to form a judgment, line of reasoning and or model

• Data Literacy - the ability to read, understand, create, and communicate data as information

• Digital Literacy - the ability to find, evaluate, and clearly communicate information on various digital platforms

• Story telling with data - the ability to communicate information, tailored to a specific audience, with a compelling narrative

Together, and always together, these enable and deliver:

• TRUTH - Understanding the importance of data creation, provenance, maintenance and governance

• MEANING - Understanding appropriate analytics & statistical methods & tech to enable decisions

• TRUST - Understanding the communication, limitation and persuasive intent of data

• MESSAGE - Understanding the methods and technologies for digital storytelling

A critical point is that all competencies are needed, and they are bound by a mindset shift that sees information management as a core competency for the entire organisation not a speciality function.

This is my go to starting point when thinking about the digital competencies need to enable a workforce to leverage data/technology in any meaningful way. No one will be twinning without that core set of people capabilities!

Principles for developing a digital twin framework

What might a framework look like to help describe the components (capabilities) that make up a digital twin?

Let's start by asking two questions to get us in the mood. I have set 5 broad capability groups up for the purposes of these questions. "It" in the diagrams below is the thing or process we are looking to twin.

Q1> What are we asking of a digital twin?

Using the rule of three, we ask:

• How does it work?

• What is it?

• Where & When is it?

Q2>What do we expect from a digital twin?

Again with the rule of three, we expect:

• Our twin to have integrated data & systems

• Our twin to facilitate collaboration in the form of interactions and sharing

• To be able to trust our twin in the form of secure and authoratitative information

A framework for thinking about Digital Twins

If a digital twin is some form of digital realisation of the real world then perhaps we should look to the real world for a conceptual framework. Are there any real world "models" we can use to help us with our framework?

Looking to ecosystem science there are two concepts I find very useful:

• Trophic Levels (you can't have eagles without grass - how much energy do you need to support a eagle!)

• Food Webs (how to make a mountain lion - how does the energy flow to make that lion)

• Trophic Levels - this reminds us that complex and higher order capabilities require, and are built on, a foundation of base capabilities to thrive and be sustainable (the foundational hierarchy for any digital twin development)

• Food Webs - this reminds us that digital twins are more often than not the result of a complex web of capability interactions (chain of value) that is realised as some visible value or outcome. (this represents the value chain needed to create a specific twin)

Putting the theory into practice

All very nice and theoretical but let's see if this can be applied in practice. Consider three guiding principles:

• Product or service need should drive capability needed to deliver.

• Capability required should drive what technology platforms offer solutions

• We are always looking for Minimum number of platforms to deliver maximum capability

How we think about the world, what’s important to us, defines how we think about twinning it? A water utility will have different focus than the built environment.

With a focus on water, what's worth twinning at a water utility? What does a utility care about? As a broad generalisation, utilities manage the delivery of water and removal/processing of waste water. Utilities have a lot of interested in these critical processes. Utilities are process managers first and facility/asset managers as a consequence of this. Process Twins are of interest at a water utility context. Process Twins will be the example that explains the digital twin development framework.

Lets use a scenario to help us define the framework

The Problem is…Imagine we have a set of waste water ponds that are the “resource” for a water recycling plant.  If certain water quality parameters are not met the recycling plant operation must be haltered. This impacts supply. Those water quality parameters are influenced by weather conditions (eg wind, rain). We actively monitor the ponds and we have access predicative data on weather conditions.

What if…Imagine if we could predict from our monitoring and predicative weather data when the recycled water plant would be unavailable (predict supply interruption).

The Outcome will be that…We could inform our customers in advance and advise on water ordering patterns to ensure smooth supply

We will achieve this by…Creating a automated system that predicts recycled water supply interruption and potential remediation measures

Now we have a scenario let's apply the value-chain to it.

A Digital Twin Example

A Digital Twin as a Value Chain

Value chain that might represent the scenario is show below. Value-chain diagrams are a product/service design technique where you start with the final product/service and work back down the value-chain (chain of need) to understand the capabilities and interactions between capabilities that will deliver the value you are looking to create.

A technical capability framework - the digital twin periodic table

The value-chain links capabilities to define a product. But where do we get the capabilities from? A good place to go shopping for capabilities is at the Digital Twin Consortium. They have developed a great resource in the Digital Twin Capabilities Periodic Table (https://www.digitalplaybook.org/index.php?title=Digital_Twin_Periodic_Table)

Use this as is or extend it to suit your agency or business need.

In summary

Using value-chain diagrams and the periodic table you can construct you digital twins based on a common set of capabilities before you consider technology. The steps being:

1. Define the set of digital capabilities you need (start with the periodic table)

2. Use these capabilities to create the value-chain or chain you need for your twin

3. Use these to test your current tech stack (do you already have what you need?)

4. Use these to test vendor offers (are they giving you what you need?)

Using a framework like this will ensure you understand the capabilities needed to deliver the ecosystem of twins your business will need, stops the accumulation of unnecessary tech debt by focusing on capability first and keeps you in line with those core principles:

• Product (or service) need should drive capability needed to deliver.

• Capability required should drive what technology platforms offer solutions

• Looking for Minimum number of platforms to deliver maximum capability

Let me know your thoughts on the framework concept. Could you apply this approach when developing your next twin?

In Addition - turning diagrams into maps

It's worth a brief focus on value-chains diagrams and what you can do with them.

The following concepts are based on Simon Wardley's Value Chain Mapping or Situational Awareness - this youtube video is a good introduction (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ty6pOVEc3bA). You can also get more detail from his website (https://www.wardleymaps.com/)

The foundation for this work comes from something all GIS folks instinctively understand, the difference between a diagram and a map is that on a map location matter.

Starting with our initial Value-Chain Diagram (representing a diagram of need )

To create a map you need an additional axis. A technology evolution axis is a good option as this represents movement. The basic progression for most tech is to start as some new idea (genesis) and develop towards commodification till a new idea (genesis) kicks starts the process again. Mapping the value-chain into this reference frame gives us a very different picture. Because position matter we can now see the story of where the tech that underpins our digital twin is on the development pathway.

Ok so you might be saying big deal..now you have a map! What can you do with that?

Quite a bit it turns out

Mapping your Current State & What If Scenarios

The simplest use of the value-chain map is to illustrate your current state. What technology and or processes do you have to deliver the product/service? You can see where you have custom and or commodity services. Because it's a map and position matters you can play "what if" games to model how a change to your capability set might impact the overall value-chain. This helps to avoid local optimisation, a common problem in large, complex or disconnected organisations.

Mapping the deliver methods you may need

Yo can also use the map to understanding what delivery methods are need to deliver your product/service. If your capability set is all genesis then you are talking agile, If your in the commodity space then it's probably going to be sigma-six. Doing this thinking stops you trying to delivery the product using methods that are not suited to where your capability sits in the evolutionary range.

Mapping the skills sets needed to deliver your digital twin

the map can also help you understand the team structure needed to deliver/maintain a product/service. It's rare in our complex world that a single skill set is all you need. Your map can help communicate why you need the folks you need to deliver a product/service.

I hope the examples above communicate why value-chain mapping can be a powerful way to maximise the leverage of your technical capabilities and provide a evidence base for investment in change.