Standards Development

Scope

This document establishes terminology for Digital Twin and describes concepts in the field of Digital Twin, including the terms and definitions of Digital Twin, concepts of Digital Twin (e.g., Digital Twin ecosystem, lifecycle process for Digital Twin, and classifications of Digital Twin), Functional view of Digital Twin and Digital Twin stakeholders.

This document can be used in the development of other standards and in support of communications among diverse, interested parties/stakeholders.

This document is applicable to all types of organizations (e.g., commercial enterprises, government agencies, not-for-profit organizations).

Purpose

Digital transformation is reshaping the world in multiple scales, from a city to a building, a factory, an automobile and so on and so forth. Digital Twin (DT), as an important enabling technology and driving force of digital transformation, has become a buzz word in both academy and industry. A common understanding of Digital Twin is a digital representation of a particular physical entity or a process with data connections that enable convergence between the physical and digital states at an appropriate rate of synchronization, and provides an integrated view throughout the lifecycle of the physical entity or the process that helps optimize the overall performance.

Digital Twin has been widely deployed in multiple domains such as smart manufacturing, smart cities, smart agriculture, smart energy, smart buildings, health care and many other fields. It can help manufacturing companies to simulate and predict products/product lines, resulting in production cycle reduction and cost reduction. It can help city planners optimize city construction based on simulation models, and realize visualization, convenience and intelligent city management. It can help agricultural producers to monitor and optimize production operations, and can perform predictive diagnosis on agricultural machinery and equipment. It can help energy managers to achieve visual monitoring and management of energy production and transmission processes, as well as fault analysis and remote operation and maintenance. It can help building operators achieve optimal control of the construction process and intelligent management of constructed buildings. It can help doctors monitor patients' realtime conditions, provide personalized medical solutions, dynamically optimize medical resources, and so on.

In the face of the wide application of Digital Twin in various scenarios, a common terminology standard is urgent to be developed to enable collaboration and cooperation, and improve the overall use of Digital Twin technology.

The purpose of the Digital Twin Concepts and Terminology is twofold:1) give a standardized definition of Digital Twin-related concepts to enable better understanding of the significant relationships among entities and practices involved in Digital Twin; and 2) support an identification of and an approach for the development of standards and other specifications that support Digital Twin.

The benefits of Digital Twin are depicted in the following form

Category of business values Potential specific business values

Quality

• Improve overall quality

• Predict and detect quality trend defects sooner 

• Control quality escapes and be able to determine when quality issue started Warranty cost and services

• Understand current configuration of equipment in the field to be able to service more efficiently

• Proactively and more accurately determine warranty and claims issues to reduce overall warranty cost and improve customer experiences Operations cost

• Improve product design and engineering change execution

• Improve performance of manufacturing equipment

• Reduce operations and process variability Record retention and serialization

• Create a digital record of serialized parts and raw materials to better manage recalls and warranty claims and meet mandated tracking requirements New product introduction cost and lead time

• Reduce the time to market for a new product

• Reduce overall cost to produce new product

• Better recognize long-lead-time Revenue growth opportunities

• Identify products in the field that are ready for upgrade

• Improve efficiency and lower cost to service product Conformity assessment of products or services

• speed up the process of conformity

• give a better coverage of testing.