Digital Twin White Paper
March 2023
ABOUT STANDARDS AUSTRALIA
Standards Australia is an independent, non-government, not for profit organisation. We are the nation’s peak nongovernment standards development organisation.
The work of Standards Australia and our staff, stakeholders, members and contributors enhances the nation’s economic efficiency, international competitiveness and contributes to a safe and sustainable environment for all Australians. Standards Australia’s vision is to be a global leader in trusted solutions that improve life – today and tomorrow.
Authors
Adam Beck: Head of Digital Urbanism, ENE.HUBAdam is an urbanist who has worked for private sector consultancies and leading global nongovernment organisations to advance sustainable community outcomes in cities around the world for almost 30 years.
He is Head of Digital Urbanism at ENE.HUB, a role that has him working collaboratively with Council’s and land authorities to realise the benefits of shared urban infrastructure in connecting, activating and measuring urban life.
Adam is Chair of the Standards Australia DTw Working Group, Co-Chair of the Smart Places and Infrastructure Workstream at the Internet of Things Alliance Australia and is Co-host of the podcast ‘Digital Built Australia’.
Adam is also Co-founder and Director of TEMPO Institute, a digital built environment education provider.
He was also the Founding Executive Director of the Smart Cities Council Australia New Zealand, a role he had for 6 years.
Adam previously had roles as Director of Innovation at EcoDistricts in Portland Oregon in the United States, Executive Director at the Green Building Council of Australia and various consulting roles with global consulting firms Arup and GHD for 15 years.
Gavin Cotterill: Founder & Managing Director GC3 DigitalGavin is a leading strategist who, for over three decades, has worked for private sector consultancies to drive a digital revolution that accelerates how cities, infrastructure and regions are planned, delivered, and managed to help increase economic effectiveness and sustainable practices.
Gavin is the founder and managing director of GC3 Digital and is an acclaimed DTw expert trusted by public and private executives to develop world-leading DTw strategies and programs. Gavin is passionate about creating a better future for people, places, and the planet. He is involved in numerous industry groups, such as the DTw Partnership, Smart Cities Council, and the Internet of Things Alliance Australia.
Gavin advocates standards and has helped develop ISO19650 BIM standards and ISO37106 Smart Cities Standards. He is currently part of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 41 - Internet of things and DTw standards development.
Gavin is also Co-founder and Director of TEMPO Institute, a digital built environment education provider and is the Co-host of the podcast ‘Digital Built Australia’, and was also the Founding Director of PCSG Australia (now part of the Cohesive Group), a role he held for seven years.
Acknowledgements
Standards Australia would like to acknowledge the support of the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Resources in the development of this white paper.
Abbreviations and Acronyms
AI Artificial Intelligence
AEC Architecture, Engineering and Construction
ANZLIC Australia New Zealand Land Information Council
BIM Building Information Modelling
DE Digital Engineering
DTw Digital Twin
GIS Geographic Information Systems
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
ISO International Organisation for Standardisation
OGC Open Geospatial Consortium
Executive Summary
A Strategic Vision for Australia?
An opportunity is on our doorstep, to grow our ‘digital’ economy and to accelerate toward our climate commitments.
We are in the early stages of a major market transformation enabled in part by significant digital innovation. DTw (DTw) capability across the country is growing and is likely to have a profound impact on how we work, live and play.
If Australia has a plan, and a consistent approach to Dtw, it will be better placed to capture the benefits of this transformation.
Key Benefits
Some of these benefits include increasing trade and investment, increasing national productivity, less disruption and waste and importantly opening up new markets and new services for the nation.
Innovations driven by digital technologies, including machine learning, artificial intelligence, could add up to $315 billion to our economy by 2028 (Alpha Beta 2018).
Through state based DTw programs in Western Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria underway, Australia is well placed to seize these opportunities.
Australia has a competitive, market driven economy with free and open trade, strong digital infrastructure and a pipeline of potential talent that could help create the right conditions for government and private sector companies to adopt DTw as more products and capabilities come to market.
Key Challenges
Australia has the potential to be a world leader in DTw technology, but without holistic planning and implementation of this cutting-edge technology our efforts to date have been disjointed.
Three key problem areas need to be addressed that will enable Australia to realize maximum value from embracing such an approach:
1. The need for greater national leadership and coordination
2. The need to drive better decisions facilitated by comprehensive information sharing and exchange
3. The need for guidance on best practice and to support future capability
Individual DTws are already being created across the country, supporting efficiencies and better outcomes through improved use of data.
To ensure we capitalise on these new advances, collaboration between states and territories and with local government is required for a more unified approach.
This approach will help Australia to build on its global leadership position with artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cyber security and privacy.
Key Recommendations
In response to these challenges this white paper lays out a series of recommendations that can support Australia’s journey to national DTw advancement and global positioning and leadership. These recommendations cover the areas of leadership and governance, critical market enablers and a national pilot program to activate opportunties. These are summarised below.
1. Introduction
1.1 About this White Paper
In Australia, like in many other parts of the world, the digital transformation of our built environment is happening at speed, with the vision of realising savings, making better decisions and delivering greater value.
Technological developments over the past few decades have been dramatic. These developments have come from many sectors, but all have applicability for our built and natural environment. But the way government and the private sector is evolving in this new era of opportunity is at times exploratory, with a lack of guidance and definition on what best practice process looks like.
DTw currently suffers this fate, with mixed interpretations of the core concepts and terminology, varying levels of understanding and application of the use cases and benefits, and a struggling marketplace that is uncertain of how to mobilise.
This is reflected through the sentiments expressed regularly at industry events, in the conversations between clients and consultants and the feedback from the industry engagement process associated with this white paper.
But the opportunity and interest to advance DTw as a platform for industry transformation is considered strong. In fact by building off existing capabilities, Australia has the opportunity to be a global leader if the right conditions are created.
The purpose of this paper, informed by its collaborative industry engagement process, provides key information relating to the scale of the DTw opportunity for Australia, and is intended to achieve four key objectives:
1. Background and observations so far in Australia, and internationally
2. Focus on the role of standards in developing and implementing DTw in Australia
3. Help support Australia’s leadership , influence, and uptake of digital and critical technologies both domestically and internationally
4. Suggest opportunities to advance DTw in Australia to enable the opportunity for growth in the market, realise the value from DTw and internationally lead in the application of it.
2. The Why
2.1 The Opportunity Ahead
Australia’s place in the world will be defined by how we adapt to digital technologies and modernise our economy. The next 10 years will determine whether we lead or fall behind. We are well placed to be a leading digital economy and have strong foundations, but many countries are investing heavily in their digital futures.
There is a concentration of data science and AI expertise in Australia, as identified in the nation’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan. Within it is a vision for Australia to be a global leader in developing and adopting trusted, secure and responsible AI.
Similarly, there is an opportunity for Australia to aspire to lead globally in building and applying DTw capability. Being in its infancy there are conditions conducive to this, with standards under development, early business case work underway, and a supply chain primed to engage.
Building on the work of the New South Wales, Victorian and Queensland state governments, Australia has an opportunity to develop global leadership in DTw, through the development of a national DTw program.
This program would ensure that Australia’s path forward will leverage DTw capability to further strengthen our economy, and lift the quality of life for all Australians.
Case Study: DTw Victoria About
The DTw Victoria program is a $37.4 million investment in DTw technology, geospatial data and spatial innovation over a period of 4 years. The program was established to help set the digital foundations for a future-ready Victoria, using data to answer new questions and make better data-led decisions.
Key Actions
DTw Victoria program is structured across 7 streams of work that bring together new foundational data and cutting-edge technical capability, high-quality datasets and intelligent analytics to leverage a new era in DTw technology.
• DTw platform
• Advanced Earth Observation
• DTw Utilities
• Automated Approvals
• Faster Subdivision Registration
• Enhanced Disaster Response
• DTw for Asset Management
What’s Next
DTw Victoria will be continuing to deliver the key uses cases within the current funding cycle and look to support Victoria’s big build program.
This program could also support businesses to enter new markets, invest in their own digita l transformation, and deliver globally competitive products and services.
This will in turn uplift businesses across the economy, boosting their productivity and competitiveness, helping them to increase revenue and employ more Australians. To ensure those benefits can be fully realised, there is a need for collaboration between our researchers, academics, Standard Development Organisations and our industries.
Building our domestic capability in DTw also ensures we are well prepared to counter national security threats, while simultaneously supporting innovation and developing Australia’s DTw expertise in areas of competitive strength. For instance, it is clear that DTw has great potential and an important part to play in Australia’s natural and built environment sectors.
Whilst the states and territories have primary responsibility for their respective built and natural environments – having a national approach can bring consistency to an evolving and potentially sporadic marketplace. And to help institutionalise a common understanding and consistent approach that reflects best practice, drives demand and supports scale we must create and adopt standards.
2.2 Practical Benefits for Australia
The benefits of DTw for the nation are diverse, and include opportunities in the following areas:
Trade & Investment
The international trading environment has become increasingly complex. Keeping the global economy open and businesses trading is crucial for Australia’s economic resilience and security. The Department of Foreign Affairs in Australia is focused on upholding the rules-based trading system and securing new market opportunities for Australian businesses. A DTw leadership position can support Australian businesses to secure opportunities globally, including through free trade agreements and advancing trade and investment collaboration in the region and more widely.
Society
Transparent stakeholder collaboration leads to greater success in meeting the needs of end-users. It enhances customer satisfaction and experience, resulting in high performing infrastructure that provides world class public services.
Economy
Increased national productivity from higher-performing and resilient infrastructure operating as a connected system is a vision for the nation. This can result in improved measurement of outcomes. Another key economic benefit of best practice DTw capability is the reduced downtime from having enhanced information security and privacy ‘built-in’.
Business
New markets, services and potential business models open up for our commerce sector when data is activated through DTw capability. Improved business efficiency from higher-performing infrastructure is also being realised from existing sectors, such as mining, infrastructure and city planning. And with optimised delivery efficiency, comes benefits to the whole value chain – investors, owners, asset managers, contractors, consultants and suppliers. All of these stakeholders benefit from the reduced uncertainty and better risk management within their operations.
Environment
Granular data in real time can offer less disruption and waste in the supply chain and in our consumption patterns. Digital Twin capability can support reuse and greater resource efficiency –a key enabler of the circular economy in the built environment. And seeking to achieve a net net zero economy is going to require an interconnected approach to information management and decision making.
Wider Australian Opportunities for Australia
Australia has long been at the vanguard of engineering and technological development. Capitalising on the opportunity of digital and DTws will enable us to build a global leadership position. There is also significant technology sector growth opportunity through the dev elopment of innovative DTw technology and broader capability.
Case Study: NSW Spatial DTw
About
The NSW Spatial DTw (SDT) is a program of work that is being led by DCS Spatial Services which will deliver a cross-sector, collaborative environment that will share and visualise location information, in a 4D model (3D plus time) of the real world, in near real time and will support improved decision making.
Key Actions
As part of the Live NSW program, funded through the Digital Restart Fund (DRF), the NSW SDT has been identified by Infrastructure NSW as an enabler of Smart Places and the realisation of the NSW Government’s priorities. It is a part of the future digital form of government which is citizen focused and outcomes driven.
The program will:
• Deliver spatial data at quality and performance levels that generate savings and efficiencies right across government and industry.
• Specifically focus in the first four years on supporting infrastructure planning and delivery as well as emergency management.
• Provide opportunities for better support and decisions in relation to environmental management and natural resource management.
• Support effective and meaningful data analytics, and provide opportunities for collaboration across academia, industry, business, and government.
• Encourage and facilitate engagement between government and community to ensure better customer service.
2.3 Key Challenges
Australia has the potential to be a world leader in DTw , but without holistic planning and implementation of this cutting-edge technology and broader capability our efforts to date have been disjointed.
This white paper examines how Australia can leverage an ecosystem of connected DTws to foster better outcomes from our built and natural environments to tackle global challenges while increasing trade and investment opportunities.
Three key problem areas need to be addressed that will enable Australia to realise maximum value from embracing such an approach, as indicated in the diagram below.
Individual DTws are already being developed across the country, creating efficiencies and better outcomes through improved use of data.
To ensure we capitalise on these new advances, collaboration between states and territories is required for a more unified approach. This approach will help Australia to build on its global leadership position with artificial intelligence, quantum computing and cyber security.
Limited capability and uncoordinated DTw programs undermines our international competitiveness
• DTw capability across state governments, cities and infrastructure owners and operators is limited and ad hoc hindering opportunities for innovation and skills growth
• No current national leadership and governance or strategic plan for DTw and trade and investment opportunities
• A current marketplace that is uncertain of how to mobilise to varying and inconsistent state government DTw programs and requirements which limits jobs and skills development.
Poor data access and low-quality information limits the opportunities to share data
• There is a lack of systematic information and data sharing across jurisdictions which reduces the opportunity to utilise the large pool of data to inform better decision-making for our built and natural environment
• Data of our built and natural environment is typically of poor quality and consistency which hampers data to be presented in consistent formats to allow for sharing and integration between different DTws
• Insights, learning and decision making of Australia’s built and natural environment is suboptimal which is resulting in an inefficient, less sustainable and costly built and natural environments.
There is limited guidance available to support a consistent approach and implementation of DTw’s
• Australian businesses can benefit from the implementation of DTw technology to create increased opportunities for global growth, improved services and advanced business strategies. This will not only bolster economic performance domestically but also expand Australia’s exports worldwide; boosting its economy on a larger scale
• The need for a security minded approach to information and data - hackers have become increasingly skilled in finding ways to access critical information – without guidance Australia is at risk of having key data being in the wrong hands
• As Australia falls behind the international development of DTw standards, our nation risks missing out on lucrative trade and investment opportunities.
The need for greater national leadership and coordination
1.
The need to drive better decisions facilitated by better information sharing
2.
The need for guidance on best practice and to support future capability
3.
3. The What
3.1 What is a DTw?
The phrase ‘DTw’ can mean radically different things to different people.
First of all, it is important to clear up what a DTw is not.
It is not a piece of technology, an IT system, or a single deployable ‘thing’.
DTw reflects a way of working with existing data and new data in novel ways that allow an organisation to improve or enhance its core purpose in ways not hitherto possible.
Many describe a DTw as a virtual representation of the real world, including physical objects, processes, relationships, and behaviours.
If we think about the above DTw definition, and its pursuit to unlock the value of existing and new data assets in impactful ways, we can start to ‘see’ the major parts as being:
The digital version of an entity (physical or non-physical) - The DTw is a realistic digital version of an asset, place, landscape, process or other entity. Its processes and systems can closely represent the behaviours and kinetics of the entity, providing an interface with which stakeholders such as policy makers, practitioners, the public, and investors can interact with the key assets and services in a single connected environment.
A platform bringing data to life - The DTw doesn’t replicate or replace existing systems that organisations have already invested in, but rather provides a cross organisation data integrity and integration capability, driving up data quality and enabling new organisation-wide insights into data which have historically been hidden away in isolated places and systems. This highquality integrated data environment will provide the basis for the DTw and its powerful analytic, presentation, and visualisation capability.
Decision support through analysis and simulation - The DTw can host requirements, designs, delivery and management information, and with the addition of sensors, behaviours, and machine learning, is able to create a dynamic model that can mimic, simulate, and predict how assets, landscapes and services will perform in real life.
However we need to remember that a DTw is more than just a digital model or representation. What the digital model or representation can do is as important, so it is useful to break down what key capabilities make up a DTw that can provide solutions to key problems in planning, delivering, and operating our built and natural environment assets and services. These DTw capabilities can be grouped around three key areas, namely:
FIND AND VISUALISE
Visualise and find data by integrating and connecting disparate systems to help improve information sharing, eliminating data silos, and increasing internal and external engagement:
• Advanced Visualisation
• System integration management
• Feature creation and extraction
UNDERSTAND AND ANALYSE
Analyse and understand the performance of your assets and services to make the right decisions, discover new patterns, and unlock the potential within data with realtime information and an authoritative network:
• Dashboard and reporting
• Performance Integration
• Insights and analytics
PREDICT AND SIMULATE
Simulate and make accurate predictions using powerful statistical, machine learning (ML), deep learning (DL), and artificial intelligence (AI) methods:
• Automation (AI / ML / DL)
• Simulation / scenario modelling
• Forecasting
3.2 The Technical Capability
There are as many technical solutions for DTw as there are sectors embracing them, with each different class often having radically different technologies underpinning them.
There is a degree of mainstream consistency for DTw and a typical DTw framework is underpinned by an information ecosystem, as illustrated in Figure 3 below. This ecosystem consists of having good quality data that can ingest and/or reference data sets, aggregate them, link them and ready them for analysis and visualisation and simulation.
3.3 The Non-Technical Capability
Supplementing the technical capability of DTw is a need to investment in the non-technical components that can support success. Whilst there are various business and human attributes that underpin the non-technical capability, there are three critical elements that have been identified for the purposes of this White Paper, namely leadership, standards and change management.
Leadership
Effective DTw outcomes, like many transformation agenda’s, need underlying leadership conditions in place. This includes structures, arrangements and processes to inspire, catalyse and manage the development, adoption and ongoing evolution of DTw capability.
Standards
Ensuring the necessary guidance is available through technical and non-technical standards is a proven tool to enable positive change and impact. Having these and other common resources enables standardisation, and the benefits that flow from this, including common purpose, agreed processes and providing the building blocks to scale outcomes.
Organisation and Culture
The capability of an organisation and its people can have a profound impact on the ability for a DTw journey, investment and/or project to be successful, or not. How a business or organisation approaches change is but one part. Investing in the capability uplift of its people, it’s systems and the tools it uses is another. Having technical DTw capability in place is critical, but in the end it can only really be activated through the organisation and the people behind it.
Leadership
Standards
Organisation and Culture
4. Now - The current situation
4.1 A Fragmented Situation
DTw efforts in Australia relating to the built and natural environment could be described in many ways, and it would be fair to say that ‘fragmented’ is one way to describe it. While there have been major steps forward in many jurisdictions, there is a lack of ‘joined up’ action and investment.
The Australian Government is seeking DTw investment for the infrastructure projects it supports, state governments are publishing infrastructure plans with similar aspirations, while local government is approaching DTw in many different ways – both for good and otherwise.
Major DTw programs like DTw Victoria, and the New South Wales spatial DTw have demostrated great leadership. But with no standards, these efforts have forged ahead with what they believe is the right approach.
And while this has happened, some local council’s have invested in strategy development and business case work – again in an environment with little to no standardisation. But this is common around the world, as standards continue to evolve, and interim measures or practice notes are in short supply.
Industry events have served to fill a gap, but again are based on the interpretation of private sector consultants and other advisers and policy makers seeking to have early impact and show leadership.
This would normally be an issue that gets resolved over time, with leadership coming from the top down from the Australian Government, and/or the key industry bodies representing the professions and/or sectors that are critical to the change.
But to date this has been lacking, or where efforts start, they struggle to maintain momentum.
4.2 Current State Snapshot
Over the last decade, Australia has made considerable progress in adopting technology and data through, Geospatial, Internet of Things (IoT) and Smart Cities, but whilst this progress has been impressive – our efforts have been siloed and mainly been driven from a bottom-up perspective. This is evidenced through the lack of digital policies, programs and funding associated to both national and state based digital built environment initiatives which include BIM, Geospatial, IoT and more recently DTw.
The table below provides a qualitative snapshot of Australia’s current state and application of digital built environment initiatives by government entities.
DTw leadership must be founded on a clear strategy or framework for success, to help the government or country realise value from their investment. Therefore the evidence of such strategic frameworks is a key indicator of potential success and the basis for the below current state assessment. The below assessment was also based on known published and publicly available documents.
4.3 Standards
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) defines a standard as: “Standards provide rules, guidelines or characteristics for activities or for their results, aimed at achieving the optimum degree of order in a given context. It can take many forms. Apart from product standards, other examples include test methods, codes of practice, guideline standards and management systems standards.”
The incorporation of DTw terminology in standards was first references in 2019 when ISO 14033 was released.
In fact, as of 2022, ISO had four standards published which referenced DTws:
• ISO 14033 (Quantitative Environmental Information)
• ISO 15704 (Requirements for enterprise-referencing architectures)
• ISO 18101-1 (Oil and Gas interoperability)
• ISO 30146 (Smart City ICT Indicators)
And, more interestingly, one of these (ISO/TS 18101:2019, 3.9) saw the first definition for a DTw included within an ISO document:
“digital asset on which services can be performed that provide value to an organization”
Today, multiple DTw standards efforts are underway via two ISO technical committees - ISO/TC 184/SC 4 and ISO/IEC JCT 1/AG 11 and ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC41.
ISO/TC 184/SC 4 are also currently developing four standards on DTws pertaining to manufacturing.
There are four key ISO/IEC projects that require mention:
1. ISO/IEC AWI 30172 DTw — Use cases
2. ISO/IEC AWI 30173 DTw — Concepts and terminology
3. PWI JTC 1-SC41-5 ED1 DTw - Reference Architecture
4. PWI JTC 1-SC41-7 DTw – Maturity model
However until the release of ISO/IEC 30173, a version of a definition that seems to be commonly used, and in alignment with ISO/IEC 30173 is “a digital representation of a real entity or process.”
But it is critical that the ‘digital representation’ element of the definition is not the sole focus.
What the digital representation can do – its capabilities – is often lost in the discussion of DTw definitions. Thus the importance of highlighting capability as a critical enabler for DTw outcomes.
Here in Australia the Australia New Zealand Land Information Council (ANZLIC) have developed their own definition (as depicted below). However, while this definition is not suitable for ISO as it was not designed to meet these requirements, the inclusion of “realistic digital representation” might help enhance the ISO definition:
“A dynamic digital representation of a real world object or system”
[SOURCE: Principles for Spatially Enabled DTws of the Built and Natural Environment in Australia]
ISO suggests that up to 80% of global trade (USD $4 trillion annually) is affected by standards or associated technical regulations. For this reason, the creation and use of consistent standards is considered fundamental for the medium to long-term sustainability of the global digital economy. As an example, international standards in information and communication technology have increased interoperability and security across technology platforms, decreased barriers to trade, ensured quality and enhanced public and user trust in digital and data related products and services.
In Australia, companies comply with a myriad of regulatory frameworks pertaining to safety and security (for electrical goods and medical devices, for instance), and are subject to competition and privacy laws in the jurisdictions in which they operate.
As such, approaches to governing the use of DTws through standards (and other means) needs to align with the scope of existing laws and regulatory requirements, both locally and internationally.
5. New - Change is underway
5.1 It’s Happening
While DTws for the built and natural environment have been around in principle for many years, only recently has there been the development of strategies and business cases to guide strategic action and investment.
Cities such as Hobart, Melbourne, Launceston, and state governments such as New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia have all recently acted to build their DTw journey in a strategic way.
Asset owners and operators such as the Victorian Department of Transport, Sydney Water and Sydney Metro have also done the same.
This strategic work provides a strong foundation from which Australia can build from – and become a global leader in DTws.
The figure below provides a partial snapshot of the Government reform that is calling for DTw, government guidance that has been tabled and also industry representatives and related industry driven guidance documents that have been published.
