Digital twins are a useful tool

We all know there are buzzwords that periodically pass around the industry and perhaps turn out to be of interest only to the people running conferences about the subject, but the digital-twin concept is here to stay because it is easy to understand and useful.

A digital twin is a digital replica of something that allows you to better understand its real-world counterpart. But the key is that it is not a one-way street; you then use that better understanding to manage the thing you twinned. And a digital twin is not just for physical assets – you can create one of a process or really anything you want to model to gain insights about.

Digital twins are useful to anyone involved in property. They are relevant at every stage of a building’s lifecycle. At the design stage, they allow architects to plan and visualise what should be built, capturing a real view of the site, with BIM integration made easy.

During the build, they provide oversight, dimensions for easy quality assurance and quantity surveying, plus documentation of progress and as-built verification. With a regularly updated digital twin, you can, for example, ‘look backwards in time’ at the twin that was made before the wall was closed in to see the run of pipes and cables. It is also useful to document work in case there is a failure later down the line.

Then, once you have actually built the thing, digital twins help you to promote it with immersive virtual tours, insure that it is based on reality rather than assumptions, and manage the building through collaborative working.

In short, digital twins are useful for anyone who has anything to do with buildings, at any stage. As forward-thinking developers take on the digital-twin challenge, you can expect them to come to the fore in 2023.

Matt Lacey is managing director at survey equipment firm Surveytech