Digital twins are an emerging technology in the AECO (Architecture, Engineering, Construction and Operation) and administration sectors, often under very different guises. But why have they been so slow to catch on? Firstly, their deployment requires careful planning, and the readiness to co-construct with the future beneficiaries using the available building blocks. Also, because the skills they mobilize occupy the frontier between the digital world and the traditional engineering professions, as well as the management/maintenance field. All dimensions to which our teams are devoting a lot of attention in the creation of the new digital twins and service offering from Egis.
So what is a digital twin? First used in the aerospace industry, digital twins are models created to describe and represent (in 2D, 3D etc.) physical assets such as buildings (stadiums, hospitals, stations, underground utilities etc.) and natural patrimony (water, air, fauna and flora, noise etc.). These models are regularly “synchronized” with their physical twins using field data. Essentially conceived for non-experts, providing a hub for collaboration between different teams, digital twins offer a shared, 360° vision of a physical asset and its surroundings. When connected to dedicated professional tools, digital twins enable closer monitoring of an asset, facilitating decision-making by allowing us to foresee or predict impending problems and simulate crisis scenarios. Providing a kind of “x-ray vision” to safety consultants, investment planners, equipment maintenance teams, and more.
However, there’s still a long way to go. Although Egis has been working for over ten years on the development of new approaches to building information modelling (BIM)* and geographic information systems (GIS)* (we invested €50m in digital technology in 2023), no digital twin is conceived, built or operated in isolation.
That’s why Egis has decided to add three new services to its catalogue as complements to its historic portfolio:
- Digital consulting
- Integration of digital twins
- Operation of digital twins
Digital consulting at the service of industry and communities
The introduction of digital twins can be a disruptive influence on existing working practices and procedures. The transparency that digital twins enable, in the form of point clouds and digital models, can signify considerable upheaval for experts and engineers who previously enjoyed a monopoly on this information. Also, in large organizations the deployment of a digital twin often provides the opportunity to re-think data circulation in a bid to break the silo mentality which can prevail in certain sectors.
For this reason, the introduction of a digital twin is more likely to succeed when it’s preceded by a design phase which addresses the “whys” and the “hows” without aggressively pushing the technology or casting it as one more “tool by engineers, for engineers”.
Therefore, Egis has developed a digital consulting offering designed for public authorities and management/maintenance professionals who find themselves faced with the challenges that digital transformation poses: such as the need to facilitate the circulation of information among their teams, improve data collection, and reconcile different models and technologies such as BIM and GIS.
We put together a team of fifty engineers and architects who are equally at home in both worlds - virtual and physical - to develop this offering. Their common denominators?
- Tried and tested engineering/operational skills and knowhow in key Egis activities including transport and mobility, built environment, aviation, water, energy, and strategic consulting.
- The ability to provide engineering consultancy services and a good comprehension not only of the existing architectures but the emerging digital technologies in the sector (BIM, PLM, asset management, AI etc.)
- An approach which demystifies new technology and encourages users and groups to engage with it, identify problems, and find solutions.
- A good vision of the applications of digital twins and ways to implement them
