A little Digital Doom mongering!

While digital twins offer numerous benefits, their widespread adoption can be hindered by certain challenges. These are numerous and many revolve around the people and culture of the organisation or project team. In my honest opinion I feel that the change needs to come from the top, with those funding and procuring. However, some of those challenges and perhaps their solutions are set out below:

Costs and Investment: Implementing digital twins requires significant investment in skilled personnel, process & business analysis and of course technology. Many organisations might hesitate to adopt digital twins due to concerns about the initial costs and the potential return on investment. We have failed to talk business language to business leaders.

Lack of Awareness and Understanding: Some stakeholders in the construction and infrastructure industries may not be fully aware of the potential of digital twins or may not fully understand their capabilities and benefits. This lack of awareness can slow down the adoption process. Even after well over a decade of focus groups looking at BIM and Digital transformation, we have failed to help everyone grasp the basic value concept. If we had, then it would be business as usual…

Interoperability and Data Integration: Digital twins rely on data from multiple sources, and ensuring seamless integration and interoperability between different systems can be challenging. Issues with data quality, format, and compatibility can create barriers to adoption. We are still throwing money into spreadsheets and schemas, which if they were fit for purpose would have been adopted by the majority and be business as usual.

Data Privacy and Security Concerns: Digital twins generate and rely on vast amounts of sensitive data. Concerns about data privacy, cybersecurity, and potential data breaches can deter organisations from fully embracing digital twin technology. These concerns have been hidden under many stones and I can confidently say we are not securing our digital data to a level that makes us resilient in the face of a serious cyber attack by a state actor.

Complexity of Implementation: Creating a digital twin for large and complex assets or infrastructure projects can be challenging and time-consuming. Organisations might be hesitant to adopt the technology due to concerns about implementation complexity. Engineering by its nature is complex, we have known how to tackle this through a system of systems approach for decades, yet we are still failing to tackle the complexity issue. Which of course will have a significant impact on our digital models, shadows and twins.

Lack of Standardisation: The absence of standardised practices and protocols for digital twin development can make it difficult for organisations to compare and select the right solutions for their needs. We have been using libraries of standard components for more than a century, yet still feel the need to re-invent the wheel because “our design is different”. Modern methods of construction could be a game changer, but if we still can’t create a standard set of information requirements applicable (and valuable) across our multi domain infrastructure portfolio, well…

Regulatory and Legal Hurdles: In some cases, existing regulations and legal frameworks may not adequately address the use of digital twins in certain industries or applications, leading to uncertainty and cautious adoption. The lack of care and attention in delivering the contractual documentation is still a source of frustration to many. Conflicting or imprecise statements and woolly definitions that could have been lifted out of a primary school project still hamper the delivery, and when all is said and done, the first thing under the axe when the project is in trouble, is the bit that is full of legal ambiguity…

Cultural and Organisational Challenges: Embracing new technologies and changing traditional workflows can face resistance within organisations. A lack of a digital culture and the need for upskilling the workforce can also pose challenges. My generation still contains too many dinosaurs! When those that are graduating now, become the CEO’s of our asset owner and construction organisations, those that demand and expect a digital first deliverable, then we will have change. Although it is not wholly the fault of current business leaders, I feel the blame should be shared with those who have failed to articulate the business value proposition, in business language, so it becomes compelling.

Infrastructure and Connectivity Limitations: The successful implementation of digital twins relies on robust internet connectivity and IT infrastructure. Areas with limited internet access or unreliable connectivity may face challenges in fully utilising digital twin technology. We still have issues around site connectivity, each time it gets “resolved” the goalposts move and we start again. Investment in this need’s effort and commitment from both the connectivity providers and the customers. The last 5 meters from the box, surely it can’t be that hard?

Vendor Lock-In: Organisations may be wary of adopting digital twins if they feel they will be locked into a specific vendor's proprietary technology, limiting flexibility and future scalability. Some vendors are more open than others, but also some vendors have better marketing departments than others, and by the time the project is nearing completion, its too late! I include all owners of proprietary formats, no matter how open, perhaps controversially even the IFC format! They all come with their issues.

Too detailed too soon: Many organisations and their cheerleaders encourage organisations and major projects to focus on very detailed asset information packages right from the very beginning, detailing (in my honest opinion) information of little value before the direction of the project is understood, when they should be looking at higher level information that will help the designer, constructor and operator to optimise the function and performance of their design and assets. Making a heavily detailed pretty picture with hundreds of pieces of information embedded in it costs significant amounts of money and delivers little value to the longer term, bigger picture! The first question in anything should be “what is the value of doing this?”. Detailed information can always be expanded on as the project progresses through the phases when the value proposition is defined.

Despite these blockers and some of my doom mongering (sorry!), the potential benefits of digital twins in improving efficiency, reducing costs, and enhancing decision-making continue to drive interest and investment. Over time, many of these challenges may be addressed through advancements in culture change, process investment, technology advancement, increased awareness, and industry-wide collaboration.