People First - The Great Tech Convergence

Hi Everyone,

I hope you are safe and well.

This edition of 'Digital Twins - People First' will take a slightly different direction, driven by experiences over the last year and as it happens, tying back to research from a few years back.

What has been re-validated in my mind is that to achieve the scale up across the built environment over the coming decades, we will need to accelerate the convergence of different technology domains, placing people at the centre.

Before providing a summary view I would like to ask a question, do you want to take part in a discussion exploring how to accelerate convergence across Information, operational, engineering and IoT domains? (IOET)

I am planning a virtual get together on the 21st November 15:00 - 17:00 to explore challenges and opportunities in this space, with experts from each tech domain. The outputs are intended to help develop a '3rd Horizon' view for the Construction Leadership Council digital and data workstream, and hopefully help develop an approach to achieve convergence at scale, focused specifically on the built environment.

Either leave or comment or message me if you would like to take part.

To better explain the thinking at this stage, here is a simplified view:

There a few key points to note, the first is the term 'Digital Assets' rather than digital twin. This is due to experience working with business stakeholders who may not necessarily understand what a digital twin is, however do generally have a strong understanding of assets. The term digital assets requires less explanation as a result. (it is not the intention here to create yet another industry term / definition for clarity!)

The second point is that this model is founded in past research, having been fortunate to publish research with the wonderful Carsten Maple and Dr. Gregory Epiphaniou focused on alignment of standards across the various tech domains and how these might fit in the context of the evolving project 13 enterprise business model. This work was presented and peer reviewed by policy makers and leading academics at both the IET and Cooperative Advantage in the Digital Economy international conference, providing a robust foundation.

The third point is that the intention is not really to create something new, rather consider how we harness existing standards, best practice and business models considering how the various pieces of the jigsaw puzzle might fit together around a common vision, in order to help people accelerate ambitions across the built environment.

The fourth and perhaps most important point is to explore how we bring people across an organisational enterprise closer to this convergence, to aid adoption at scale. Having worked in each of these domains across my career, I can say with confidence that convergence across these domains is difficult even among technologists, as each domain has its own approaches and cultures to consider. Asking the wider business to engage and understand the transition is even harder and it is made more difficult / confusing with sometimes competing viewpoints from us techies!

Generally speaking experience suggests each tech domain believes their approach is the most important element to building digital assets, the engineering ISO19650 standards for example effectively evolves design and engineering digital assets into something akin to a SCADA system, in the OT world experts are getting more adept at integrating into enterprise systems, in part thanks to IoT approaches…. and of course IT brings the underlying infrastructure, systems and frameworks at enterprise scale.? It has been fascinating to hear each side of the argument, and through first-hand knowledge of designing and developing solutions across the domains, experience the challenges in each space. A personal conclusion is that 'nobody is wrong', each domain has a key piece of the jigsaw, a possible answer to the conundrum is to align people around an integrated business model and align in terms of outcomes.

This is where the Project 13 enterprise can play a strong part, it has already proven that building long term partnerships across diverse supply chains can unlock value, it has to date however focused strongly in the engineering domain, with opportunities to bring the tech world much closer to the business and the challenges faced.

One key challenge that the enterprise model can support is that IT / OT and IoT domains are largely under direct control of owner / operators, whereas engineering tech is largely controlled by supply chain partners. Effectively bringing the ET world into the existing IT / OT / IoT convergence requires adoption of a project13 style model.

This is to my mind a sensible way to enable a step change in pace and scale.

Achieving a step change in pace and scale across the built environment requires asking people to change the way they work, this change if not managed carefully will present the biggest risk to transformation. There is a strong body of research into digital transformation across industry and academia, with consistent conclusions. The main reason for failure, with around 70% of transformation projects failing to achieve their core objectives, is because not enough focus is placed on the impact on people.

We can implement fantastic IOET systems, processes and data solutions however if people are not ready for the change this brings, then ultimately outcomes will not be realised.

If like me you believe the right jigsaw pieces exist to accelerate this convergence, then please do engage in the? discussion, the community that follows this series sits across the IOET domains, you are key experts who can help enable change.

Any questions on this in the meantime let me know, only really scratching the surface here and have collated a fairly extensive body of research in this space, keen to share knowledge and learn with others.

Take care folks, see you soon.

Regards

Kevin

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