What’s the difference between a “Digital Twin” and a simulation? Or a model?
Not much, except maybe Digital Twins have a more robust connection between production data and the simulation’s behavior.
Or, as explained in a worth-your-while-if-you’re-interested-in-the-subject article titled “How to tell the difference between a model and a Digital Twin,” (Louise Wright & Stuart Davidson, SpringerOpen.com¸ 3/11,2020), “… a Digital Twin without a physical twin is a model.”
Which leaves open the question of what to call a modeled or simulated physical thingie.
Anyway, like models, simulations, and, for that matter, data mining, “Digital Twins” can become little more than a more expensive and cumbersome alternative to the Excel-Based Gaslighting (EBG) already practiced in many businesses.
If you aren’t familiar with the term EBG that isn’t surprising as I just made it up. What it is:
Gaslighting is someone trying to persuade you that up is the same as down, black is the same as white, and in is the same as out only smaller. EBG is what politically-oriented managers do when they tweak and twiddle an Excel model’s parameters to “prove” their plan’s business case.
Count on less-than-fully-scrupulous managers fiddling with the data cleansing and filtering built into their Digital Twin’s inputs so it yields the guidance the manager in question’s gut insists is right. Unless you also program digital twins of these managers so you can control their behavior, Digital Twin Gaslighting is just about inevitable.
Not that simulations, models, and/or Digital Twins are bad things. Quite the opposite. As Scott Lee and I point out in The Cognitive Enterprise, “If you can’t model you can’t manage.” Our point: managers can only make rational decisions to the extent they can predict the results of a change to a given business input or parameter. Models and simulations are how to do this. And, I guess, Digital Twins.
But then there’s another, complementary point we made. We called it the “Stay the Same / Change Ratio.” It’s the gap between the time and effort needed to implement a business change to the time the business change will remain relevant.
Digital Twinning is vulnerable to this ratio. If the time needed to program, test (never ignore testing!) and deploy a Digital Twin is longer than the period of time through which its results remain accurate, Digital Twinning will be a net liability.
Building a “Digital Twin,” simulation, or model of any kind is far from instantaneous. The business changes Digital Twinning aspires to help businesses cope with will arrive in a steady stream, starting on the day twin development begins. And the time needed to develop these twins isn’t trivial. As a result, the twin in question will always be a moving target.
How fast it moves, compared to how fast the Digital Twin programming team can dynamically adjust the twin’s specifications, determines whether investing in the Digital Twin is a good idea.
So simulating a wind tunnel makes sense. The physics of wind doesn’t change.
But the behavior of mortgage loan applicants, is, to choose a contrasting example, less stable, not to mention the mortgage product development team’s ongoing goal of creating new types of mortgage, each of which will have to be twinned as well.
Bob’s last word: You might think the strong connection to business data intrinsic to Digital Twinning would protect a twin from becoming obsolete.
But that’s an incomplete view. As Digital Twins are, essentially, software models of physical something-or-others, their data coupling can keep the parameters that drive them accurate.
That’s good so far as it goes. But if what needs updating in the Digital Twin is its logic, all the tight data coupling will give you is a red flag that someone needs to update it.
Which means the budget for building Digital Twins had better include the funds needed to maintain them, not just the funds needed to build them.
Bob’s sales pitch: All good things must come to an end. Whether you think KJR is a good thing or not, it’s coming to an end, too – the final episode will appear December 18th of this year. That’s should give you plenty of time to peruse the Archives to download copies of whatever material you like and might find useful.
On CIO.com’s CIO Survival Guide: “6 ways CIOs sabotage their IT consultant’s success.” The point? It’s up to IT’s leaders to make it possible for the consultants they engage to succeed. If they weren’t serious about the project, why did they sign the contract?
Boo!
KJR ending?
Boo! Boo!
How about Keep the Country Running?
On those times when KJR has touched on political or social issues there have been many responses. Most of them I found interesting and occasionally I learned something new.
So, why don’t you set the guard rails you want, give us your 2 cents on whatever topic you want, and let the rest of us comment, so long as we act like adults?
Maybe do it twice a month, so we don’t ruin your retirement.
Well this just might be the first time I counted a “boo!” as a compliment. Thank you!
To address your suggestion, one of my KJR self-tests since its first day as InfoWorld’s IS Survival Guide has been that I have to bring new thinking, or at least an unusual perspective, to the subject at hand. Given the sheer number of social and political commentators out there … generally better-informed than I am even if I think they’ve missed something important … I think it’s important to recognize my limits.
But I’m very flattered you’d think I should weigh in on the issues of the day. Thank you!
You don’t need to be a public policy wonk like liberal Hillary Clinton or conservative George Will to have an interesting opinion worth discussing.
It’s clear from the DC hearings in the recent past that included Zuckerberg, et al, that the Senators had no clue about digital technology and its impact on business, society, and thus, public policy.
However, you, and we do. All we need is a paragraph or two a couple of times a month, and we can give our 2 cents worth.
Synergy can be a beautiful thing.
Thank-you for all the insights and points of view you’ve shared. I’ve learned from you for 20+ years.
When I was about to graduate with my masters in construction management in Spring 2013, I asked all the contracting companies at the job fair whether they had a position for explaining to customers how to use and get value out of the building information model (BIM) data that was created to manage the construction of their new building. Answers ranged from, “gee that’s a good idea,” to “maybe in a couple of years,” to “none of our customers have asked for that.”
I stayed in IT, where I moonlighted as the IT facilities manager, and watched. A few years later the term “Digital Twins” popped up in construction, and suddenly the industry had figured out how to market “we already have a complete, as-built model of the your building which you can use for facilities management.”
The GSA and DOD had been using BIM models of their physical plant for over a decade, and one of the State Colleges in Florida had gone back and created such models for their whole campus before I graduated. My institution has 2000+ buildings and is chipping away at the backlog. Those groups are all committed to keeping the models in sync with the changes, and they get a lot of use from not having to re-learn what’s above the drop ceiling, in the walls, or even under buried the streets when it’s time to perform maintenance.
I see “Digital Twins” as the accessible marketing speak for we know what’s inside that thing, and I’m delighted that the already created data is being adopted for use by the customers in many industries. Predictive maintenance is the goal for many industries, but just saving time finding the right valve or junction can be a hug win.
Thanks for sharing a real-world example that demonstrates twinning is possible, if a company takes it seriously.
Bob,
I am deeply grateful to you for the thought-provoking and action-provoking articles throughout the years. Equipped with what I’ve learned from you, I have been a better leader, colleague, and public servant.
For example, I’ve amplified your messages about TCO and best practices, running counter to the popular narrative. I’ve carefully applied lessons on culture and unintended consequences. I’ve been a more effective communicator. And I’ve led with a sense of mission and purpose, caring for the human beings that compose my team, my colleagues, vendors, superiors, elected officials, and even IT management journalists.
Surely you have much more to share, and I pray you have already found or will find the venues where doing so will be most rewarding for you. Thank you most sincerely for all you have given your readers. Heartfelt wishes for excellent health, abundant joy, and rich fulfillment in everything you do upon closing chapter and starting the next.
Jim
Bob,
You have been a dependable voice of reason in management commentary for years and years. I’ve quoted you and encouraged others to subscribe. (Don’t know if any did. Their loss!)
You were usually a temperate voice in political commentary as well when you couldn’t resist opining from your pulpit. I’m from a very different social and political milieu than you seem to be, yet you never offended me and often gave insights. In a recent favorite essay you suggested (not demanded) that educational historical subject matter be targeted to the students’ maturity. Elementary students should learn of heroes, which American has aplenty. High School students should learn of warts and complexity, of which America has aplenty, too. And college students should make themselves mature enough to take it all on. You said it so winsomely and persuasively that I think the idea can draw people together rather than spread them apart.
You got me to read Roger Zelazny’s last novel. (I hadn’t even known about it.) I go back and reread his stories. I find pleasure in the sentences even if the stories are no longer the wonder they were the first few times.
Thanks for being part of a fun ride!
What can I say beyond thank you for such a wonderful compliment?
I’m delighted you found my weekly musings worth your time.
You can’t go! All the plants are going to die!
Clearly you haven’t seen the results of me taking care of a plant. It isn’t pretty.
Ah, Bob, say it ain’t so!
But you already said it is so, so I guess we have to bid farewell to another part of life we’d like to hang onto, given our druthers.
I’d like to echo the suggestion that you convert the space from IT specific to Whatever Comes to Mind – and see what happens. Maybe like the best of Quora? (I know, there’s a lot of crap to wade through, but when it’s good it’s very very good.)
If you do leave, though, let me add my name to the long list of those who have declared: “you and your thoughts matter to me.”
I can’t think of anything better than that to hear.