Informing Value: industry analysis for complex process facility digital twins

Abstract

The organizational capability of a firm to create, integrate and maintain cyber versions of complex physical systems known as Digital Twins is a key enabler for joining the 4th Industrial Revolution. This article highlights the business case for firms in the petrochemical process industry to manage digital twins as valuable business assets based on academic and business literature, webcast and live presentations, and the professional experiences of the author. A digital twin maturity model is provided to differentiate how each level of data integration contributes to informing. Three digital twin asset valuation models are introduced to illustrate how digital twins can inform value in different contexts. Findings include how knowledge is generated from digital twins, and how an informing attribute of decision making referred to here as ‘insight value’ can be realized from maintaining digital twins over the full asset lifecycle. Many software applications and tools have become available for firms to adopt this innovative technology; however, integration with the diverse and often siloed systems that serve as data sources have been hampered by inconsistent data governance, data exchange requirements, and interface standards. This article, the first in a series of three, explores on-going efforts to mitigate this problem of practice as interest in application of this innovative technology reaches the tipping point where industry-wide adoption drives greater efficiency and improves decision making throughout the complex facility lifecycle.