Taking the helm and steering the Digital Transformation

Roberto Saracco April 5, 2019 Blog 530 Views

Digital twins are evolving rapidly in terms of adoption and most importantly in terms of “role”. As shown in this graphics digital twins today interact with their physical counterpart. In the next decade they are going to live a symbiotic life with their physical twin and that will be a game changer in the way products are being designed, manufactured and operated. Digital twins are fundamental component of Industry 4.0 and their application to smart cities, health care, education, … you name it, will be at the core of the Digital Transformation. Image credit: Medium.com

The big issue, facing today companies and organisations alike, is how to jump on the Digital Transformation bandwagon without disrupting their ongoing business. Starting from scratch is simply not an option if you have a company. You need to leverage on your company’s assets using them as a springboard.
This is where Digital Twins come into play.
They are at the same time an easy to grasp, straightforward concept, mirroring objects, products, services, processes (and soon people!) in the digital space, and an extremely sophisticated tool to reshape both the inner working of a company and its relation through the value chain, including those that are not active today but that, because of the de-materialisation offered by Digital Twins, can become feasible.
Digital Twins provide the path to transform the offer of a company, from being a product seller to becoming a service provider. They can change the relation between a city and its citizens, they can drastically cut efforts and time in development and provisioning while enabling a myriad of new players to participate in the ecosystem.
These are complex concepts and their instantiation into specific reality might be even trickier. Yet they are becoming the tool of the trade in approaching and executing the Digital Transformation.
Companies, most of the time, do not realise how much they already have in terms of Digital Twins. Design, manufacturing, invoicing, customer care: these are just a few of the activities that generate volume of data. Harvesting these data, re-tuning existing processes to take advantage of them is what needs to be done
Hence, no surprise that the Digital Transformation course, developed by EIT Digital and IEEE FDC, dedicates quite a bit of focus on practical creation and application of Digital Twins along the whole value chain. In addition to a specific module providing in depth understanding on Digital Twins, several other modules are using and applying Digital Twins in a variety of application areas and in a variety of situations, including the use of Digital Twin in the knowledge space, in education both at personal and company level. Interviews to key industry players provides concrete experience in a variety of domains.

The possibility of working on micro and macro assignment involving digital twins and most importantly of discussing the various implications on line with the tutor and in the Face to Face 2 days of deep dive provide an operational tool to execute and leverage the Digital Transformation.