Submitted by Angela Walters on Thu, 17/10/2019 - 10:41
David Cuckow from BSI talks about the role of the Digital Twins Hub to share knowledge, agree on common approaches and inform future “good practice”. David is leading the team that will set up and facilitate the DT Hub, working as part of the CDBB team and together with the founder members and key stakeholders.
Digital twins bring significant improvements in the management of assets and operations, connecting data across organisations and beyond to drive better decisions throughout asset lifecycles. This can transform asset performance, productivity and the provision of services in the built environment.
Connecting thinking is just as important as connecting data – without direction and coordination, there is a danger that investments in digital twins will fail to deliver the anticipated benefits. The good news is that there is already strong interest in this type of collaborative working, spanning public, private sectors and academia. This becomes increasingly important as we start to transition from individual digital twins, to a federation of interoperable digital twins.
The Digital Twins Hub, as a key part of the National Digital Twin programme led by CDBB, is being shaped with exactly this kind of co-operation in mind. The DT Hub is a new web-enabled community that will foster collaboration between early adopters, suppliers and creators of digital twins in the built environment.
To start with, the Hub will launch with six organisations that own or are developing digital twins. Each of these is a major asset owner and operator in the built environment space. Over time we expect the membership to expand and to include a wider range of stakeholders – and you can already register your interest by emailing us at DTHub@cdbb.cam.ac.uk
BSI, working as part of the CDBB team, will set up and facilitate the DT Hub. This will start with discovering and assessing common opportunities and challenges for members and other stakeholders. We will crystallise this thinking into a focus on priority “themes” that can deliver the greatest potential value to members and wider stakeholders, with strategic direction coming from the DT Hub Steering Group (DTHubSG), chaired by Sam Chorlton.
The DT Hub activities will combine face to face engagement and online collaboration through a dedicated digital portal. This will include running workshops, sourcing and shaping content, facilitating online and offline discussions based around the themes. We plan to take a pragmatic approach, learning through doing and progressing through sharing – including what works well and lessons learnt from early pilots and projects. This can then feed into an evolving view of “what good looks like” and inform the need for future standards and guidance in CDDB’s “Commons” stream.
The DT Hub will also provide a space to test and refine the Gemini Principles (the shared values for the National Digital Twin) and to support the evolution of the Information Management Framework (IMF) that will underpin interoperability between federated digital twins.
We’re delighted to be working with CDBB, the DTHubSG and the founder members and looking forward to get started with shaping the Hub together. And we hope that there will be lots more to share on this over the coming months.