Recommended reads

A quick recap of the stages of Industrial Revolution - from 1760

An article that seeks to distance metaverse hype from the value of industrial digital twins

The value of Digital Twins can only be realized if Digital Twins and their virtual environment contain the same data and resulting information as their corresponding Physical Twins and real-world environment. This means that the need for more extensive, faster, and richer sensing of the physical world will dramatically increase as valuable use cases proliferate. In addition, we will evolve from working in physical or virtual environments to integrating and working simultaneously in both environments. Dr. Grieves discusses his views on the opportunities and issues of this evolution.

This short article provides a quick read introduction to digital twins applied to the oil & gas industry.

With the advent of Industry 4.0, there has been an increasing trend toward interconnectedness. Within this trend, the recommendations in this article position digital twins as a critical, connecting force.

Whilst use of unstructured data (sensors, images, video) is increasing, structured data remains crucial and is instrumental in developing descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analysis.

An interview with Kaishi Zhang focused on data interoperability relating to industrial automation

A thorough review of production system digital twin literature and market with quantified results

In this article McKinsey lay out a basic three-step approach to building a digital twin: creating a blueprint, building the initial digital twin, and then boosting its capabilities.

The title of the article says it all – eight benefits, briefly outlined.

This short promotional content piece provides a snapshot of benefits and case studies of Oil & Gas digital twins.

This article presents a discussion on how Intelligent Digital Twins (IDTs) will evolve and assist in developing and managing complex systems.

Every company today is data-driven or at least claims to be. Business decisions are no longer made based on hunches or anecdotal trends as they were in the past. In this environment, data quality is a necessary conversation.

“For a greener, more reliable, more secure energy future, the utility industry must make digital twins a ubiquitous part of everyday operations. But what does this mean and how does it look?”

A short clear article focused on use cases for digital twins in manufacturing.

A review of Industry 4.0's impact on the future of the "digital supply chain"

This article looks at how intelligent digital twins will be able to improve manufacturing and bring about continuous improvement.

A robust research paper focused on the question: “How does the digital twin concept support the realisation of an integrated, flexible and collaborative manufacturing environment as one of the goals projected by the fourth industrial revolution?”

"Interoperability is critical to enable digital twins to process information from heterogeneous systems. The Digital Twin System Interoperability Framework seeks to address this challenge by facilitating complex system of systems interactions. Examples include scaling a smart building to a smart city to an entire country, or an assembly line to a factory to a global supply chain network,” said Dan Isaacs, CTO, Digital Twin Consortium.

An interview with Aurelien Le sant, CTO Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric

Leaders must take pragmatic and targeted actions to improve their enterprise data quality if they want to accelerate their organization's digital transformation.

A research paper specifically focused on the railway point (also called a switch or turnout) – the asset utilised for switching and locking rails, “slipping a track into two or more different tracks”.

This paper sets out principles for the European Commission’s perspective on digital twins applied to the digital transformation of rail.

A case study that walks through the practical issues faced when trying to reduce maintenance costs with a manufacturing digital twin

The City of Seoul implemented S-Map (soil mapping) technology to create a digital twin to solve various urban problems through simulation, combining information such as administration and environment.

An article focused on bridges, but with learnings for assets made complex given the need to design whilst building, structural tensions, material issues, and rush to build.

This paper on electronic rail digital twins, presented at the Power Electronics, Drive Systems, and Technologies Conference focuses on the need for precision to execute an exact simulation of the performance of real physical system.

Report on a digital twin developed to understand the structural health of a 47-year-old pumped storage station (first operational in 1974), and determine if the asset could continue to operate safely into the future.

This article outlines how making use of advanced connectivity to optimize oil & gas drilling and production throughput and improve maintenance and field operations could add up to $250 billion of value to the industry’s upstream operations by 2030.

An entry-level article by PWC Australia of the benefits of industrial digital twins

PWC Australia examine how 'digital twins promise to take the risk, cost and time out of making essential decisions for the future of your business'

This article is an easy introduction to the concept of APIs, API-first, the outlining benefits of an API-first approach.

Four very brief project summaries with digital twins applied to roading projects.

This short article discusses the increasing skills shortage (10 plus years industry experience) facing the oil and gas sector.

The paper proposes a reference model for risk control and prevention using a digital twin.

An article from 2019 that examined the maturing of digital twins in the North Sea focused on Total, Aker BP, and Shell who had each developed and deployed twins.