One of the hot topics of debate these days is: “Why the Digital Twin?”
In simple terms, the definition of a Digital Twin is that it’s a digital representation of a thing, a person, a place – or all of the above – provided it can be connected through IoT. That representation could be a vehicle, battery, generator, ship, fuel tank, telco tower, or an entire smart city – including parameters, people and equipment. But the key to creating an effective Digital Twin lies in the ability to apply a semantic ontological approach in the design because it allows organisations to drill down into granular detail to simulate, predict and optimize efficiencies within their business.
The technology behind the Digital Twin is not new – it is considered disruptive technology that promises to revolutionise operational efficiencies – but how we use it effectively within organisations is where the challenge – and the benefits lie. Gartner predicts that in 2021, half of major industrial companies will transform their companies through the use of digital twins, which will translate into a 10% improvement in their efficiency. The healthcare sector can even have direct applications for humans through their ability to help create healthcare plans and increase preventive measures in the face of possible diseases.
An illustration of an Affectli Digital Twin of a remotely located Cellular Tower Site.
To illustrate the effectiveness of Digital Twin technology within the Affectli platform, Mi-C3 has a client who is a Cellular Tower owner that has sites situated in remote, outlying areas.
They were running their entire site management system manually through a variety of apps, and using computerised aids such as excel spreadsheets to log data and report information. These documents were then sent via email to all parties concerned alongside instructions to review, analyse and action respective tasks.
Their systems resulted in inaccurate reporting, overloaded servers and difficulty managing, tracking and monitoring people, processes and equipment in their remote locations, and as a result, sought out an effective Digital Transformation strategy to ensure that tower communications sites were fully functional in order to meet their Mean Time to Repair and Service Delivery that is benchmarked and managed against a stringent SLA. The end result was zero no-fuel days and a reduced MTTR from 4 hours to 2 hours.
By bringing all the signal devices together, we were able to create a Digital Twin within the Affectli platform that provided the client with critical information relating to their operation in real-time. This presented the client with extensive capabilities, including (and not limited to) the ability to:
- Remotely view their operation in real-time;
- Access critical information with the ease of clicking a button;
- Accurately track, trace, monitor and maintain assets;
- Manage access to the site;
- Monitor abnormalities & breaches, including the ability to view CCTV camera feeds remotely, and using the Situational Awareness feature to identify the nearest (relevant) personnel, they have the ability to immediately dispatch them to monitor/investigate/action an identified problem.
An illustration of an Affectli Digital Twin that is drillable into granular detail.