As we’ve talked about many times over the last year or so, the idea of a digital twin has taken on something of a second wind lately. After years of serving as one of the industry’s most used buzzwords without quite delivering on promised value, many became disillusioned with the technology. However, with improvements in reality capture technology to create the base of these twins as well as artificial intelligence to parse all of this data, digital twins are starting to be implemented across a number of industries to strong results.
Last month, Hexagon released a report backing up this point, surveying industry leaders about their usage – or lack thereof – of digital twins and some of the benefits they’ve seen from this adoption. The report, which can be downloaded for free, includes responses from 660 C-suite executives across 11 industries, and shows real momentum in this space, along with clear indications that plenty of room for greater adoption remains.
While digital twins are certainly becoming more popular, one of the fundamental issues is that there still isn’t a clear definition of what a digital twin even is. Because of that, it makes sense that Hexagon started their report with their definition of the term, providing more context about what follows. Their definition is: “A precise digital representation of the physical world that uses dynamic data to simulate, analyze, monitor, and optimize performance.”
The entire report is worth a read to get a grasp of how the industry is thinking about digital twins, but there were a few areas in particular that were interesting to me. Firstly is that the respondents overwhelmingly reported vast benefits from implementing digital twins. From improving efficiency to reducing risk, costs, and carbon emissions, at least three-quarters of respondents indicated they experienced every listed benefit to at least “some extent.” Of course, given that the report is coming from a company in Hexagon who provides both hardware and software associated with digital twins we’d expect largely positive responses, but some of the supplementary data speaks well to the potential of digital twins.
One of my favorite sections of the report, for example, compared responses from those who did not have a digital twin with responses from those who did. The results indicate that reality outpaces expectations. To illustrate that point, only 19 percent of the first group expected digital twins to increase collaboration within their team. In reality, 44 percent of the latter group said that their digital twins have indeed increased collaboration. Similar gaps were seen in improving problem-solving, increasing reliability, and reducing carbon emissions, among other categories.
Speaking of carbon emissions, sustainability was one of the major themes of this report, with respondents indicating an overwhelmingly positive effect on their sustainability efforts from digital twins. More specifically, nearly 40 percent of respondents said they see “significant” reduction in carbon emissions with digital twins, with the average reduction in emissions coming in at 15 percent. That seems to be a surprise to the industry, with only 23 percent of non-digital twin users believing adoption will lead to significant reduction on this front.
Artificial intelligence also played a big role in this report, with AI representing a major factor in this adoption. The report outlines how AI is used across the lifecycle of a digital twin, from creating it to updating and improving accessibility. Of course, AI is booming across all sectors now, and 80 percent of the report’s respondents told Hexagon that AI has made them more interested in this technology.
There’s plenty more to dig into with this report, including the dispelling of some myths around the technology as well as an important acknowledgement that part of the reason adoption is down in some spaces is because the technology was too overhyped, leading to skepticism and confusion. Overall, though, the report shows strong trends toward not only greater adoption of the technology, but also strong return on investment from those who have already implemented their digital twins.
