Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 1

Taking Control of the Digital Twin

Marcus Bole (M), Naval Architect, AVEVA Solution Ltd, UK

Gabriel Powell (M), Business Development Manager - Shipbuilding and Offshore NA, AVEVA Inc, USA

Eric Rousseau (M), VP Marine Solutions NA, AVEVA Inc, USA

The rise of digital documentation has given the marine industry the ability to capture more information than ever

about the ships and facilities we produce and operate. While this should make management of these assets more

effective, the ease in which information can be created often means that we find ourselves unable to find the

information we’re searching for. As constituent engineering systems become more complex, integrated and

autonomous the need to retain documentation that describes operation becomes necessary for efficient maintenance

and resolving unforeseen situations. Digital Twin’s address this challenge by retaining and publishing

documentation, but a key principle is the efficient means to find data to ensure relevance and reduced searching time.

For several years, AVEVA has been exploiting the opportunity to link asset documentation together using contextual

themes to create a connected dataset which allows quick identification of critical and related information. This has

resulted in several Digital Twin interfaces that deploy information into different scenarios and devices, from

handheld personal devices to large format screens for team decision support. Using these tools our customers can

maintain their vessel, expose trends in data and provide insight into ways their asset may be changing over time.

THE DIGITAL TWIN For all but the oldest of vessels information capturing the

design, engineering, production, operation and management is

stored digitally. The ease in which this information can be

created and transmitted means that the quantity stored can be

considerably large. Information can be generated by many

stakeholders involved in the activities. Their data may not be

stored in the same system and may be inaccessible to the other

stakeholders. Poor management can lead to different versions of

the same data being stored in multiple systems, the worst being

email. Since information systems have much shorter life span

than ships there will be a need to replace legacy systems a

number of times. Information is critical to the safe operation

and management of ships. It’s needed to help fix failed onboard

systems and to plan maintenance to avoid failures before they

happen. Typical unplanned maintenance causing service delays

may not greatly affect business revenue but can cause

significant short term disruption to customers and degrade

reputation, (BBC, 2017). Larger critical and costly failures can

occur when the incorrect actions are taken. For example, the

three-day outage of British Airways Flights in May 2017 was

caused by a contractor operating the wrong power switch to the

main data centre, followed by incorrect procedures being used to

restore the system, (Cox, 2017). The cost to the company was

initially estimated £80 million within the first few days of the

event, rising to £130+ million later. In the Oil & Gas domain, a

rough-order-of-magnitude revenue cost of a stoppage for a

typical facility producing 150,000 barrels per day is $8000 per

minute (for a barrel price of $75). With systems becoming more

complex, having readily available access to system information

and operating procedures is a necessity before work is

undertaken to avoid delays caused by lack of knowledge or

incorrect action.

On ships, the ISM (International Safety Management) Code

regulates the information and processes used to prevent

catastrophic failures and ensure a “good practice” is followed.

A prudent operator would extend this approach so that all

information is held in easily accessed managed systems. While

document management systems can fulfil these requirements

they often focus on the challenge of maintaining current

versions of information and rather than making information

accessible and exploitable. As the information held becomes

large, finding relevant items using simple text based searches

becomes more time consuming.

The Digital Twin concept addresses this challenge by enhancing

accessibility of information through an enhanced user interface

which may be within Internet Web Browsers or dedicated

applications run on personal computers, laptops or mobile

devices. As this technology evolves, software developers are

innovating methods of accessing information and exploiting

different technology for transmitting information. The

separated hardcopy 2D drawings and documents used in the past

can now be retained and accessed digitally. New media such as

interactive 3D Models, photographs, videos, presentations,

electronic survey data, public Internet references and eLearning

material can be used to capture knowledge in alternative ways.

Since a far greater number of individual pieces of information

can be collected on ships’ systems than ever before the overhead

of finding relevant information is potentially increased.

However, by classifying information contextually the Digital

Twin becomes an essential solution for rapidly identify and

presenting content an easily consumable way.

With the use of live onboard Condition Monitoring predicted to

increase in the future, the amount of data collected will become

far more than a user of existing systems can consume or use

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 2

effectively. The Digital Twin will be the means through which

this data is accessed to understand the state of the vessel and

ensure continued safe and green operation.

AVEVA Digital Twin Technology AVEVA is better known for its Engineering Design software,

PDMS, used in the Plant industry and AVEVA Marine,

formerly Tribon, used in the Maritime sector. Based in

Cambridge, the heritage of these applications can be traced back

to the early development of Engineering software. Over the

years, an unimaginable number of drawings, diagrams, P&IDs

and reports etc., have been authored in software, later packaged

up, sent to the ship owner or operator and archived. In the past,

this information would have primarily been captured on paper

but can now be delivered digitally. Since finding specific

information by sequentially searching through documents is

inefficient, AVEVA developed its NET platform, a system to

evaluate and capture relationships between items of information

stored across all documents in a project using a similar approach

to data models used in Social Media platforms like Facebook.

Using this model, rich experiences can be developed where

users can find information on ship systems and their physical

components, with related documents being offered based on

contextual relationships to other items. Presently, AVEVA

NET Portal deploys the Digital Twin on Browser technology

making it available across a range of different devices and

operating systems and is targeted towards the needs of

individuals accessing information and documents. Another

product, AVEVA Engage makes reuses the same data and

publishes it using platform specific software onto large format

touch screen monitors. The user interface uses the 3D Product

model as a navigation tool to access documentation and

understand the relationships and location of systems and the

associated components. By supporting large touch screen

interfaces this system is intended to be used by teams or in

meetings for decision support type scenarios.

Figure 1, Reuse of engineering information from design and production software, left, into a Digital Twin for Decision support, right.

OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES

Engineering Employment Demographics Change is a continuous process and being a conservative, safety

conscious domain the marine sector is traditionally slow to

adopt innovations used in other engineering dependant

industries when there isn’t a game changing need to adapt.

Wages are a significant proportion of turnover and the

challenging economic period of the last decade has seen may

companies adopt cost cutting strategies by cutting workforce

numbers. Adoption of new technology can lessen the impact

and offers the ability automate mundane or repetitive tasks, or

expose insight into systems and operational data that would in

the past have required a dedicated research team. As the

workforce is reduced, often older, mature or senior staff take the

opportunity to leave which means their valuable knowledge of

procedures, processes and systems becomes unavailable. This

highlights the value of knowledge and its capture particularly

for older critical systems or operations where it may not be

written down.

In certain marine sectors, such as UK Naval Engineering, there

is a reduced number of experienced engineers available to take

on roles left by retiring seniors. Today, this generation should

be taking on the role of experienced lead engineers and handing

down knowledge to juniors. A study by UKNEST (Dobson,

2013) identified three distinct demographics which, when it

comes to technology adoption, can be described as follows:

Age > 50: Management and senior roles are frequently occupied

by the so called ‘Baby Boomers’. This generation entered

employment in the pre-silicon age, learnt by doing and built up

significant experience through exposure to operating and

maintaining systems that could be disassembled in-situ. They

understood complex concepts through empiricism and anecdotes

through which knowledge would be passed on. This generation

is now looking to retire and which can bring with it a lack of

enthusiasm to adopt new ideas.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 3

Age < 35: Graduates and those in junior roles never experienced

the time before powerful computers and mobile devices. They’ll

readily accept new ideas which may be abandoned just as

quickly if of limited use. Since there are few opportunities to

gain hands-on experience they will readily use computing

technology to model and simulate first principle concepts in

ways that could not be achieved some years ago as an

alternative. Embracing technology in this way exposes new

ideas to improve performance of ships and business practices.

Crucially, they might not know how something works but they

always know how to “Ask Google”. An enthusiastic few may

create the “Google” of tomorrow.

Figure 2, Distribution of age in the workforce of different UK engineering sectors, Marine Naval Engineering is dominated by a high number of senior

professional who will be retiring in the next 10 year, taking their expertise with them.

35 < Age < 50: Those in middle roles were exposed at an early

age to the emerging consumer computing technology. They had

the opportunity to engage with digital technology from its

introduction and although many did not, the engineering sector

was where one could choose to make this new technology part

of your career. The challenge today is that since many did not

chose to enter the engineering field, this demographic finds

itself under resourced, time challenged and in demand, desiring

the freedom to engage with new technology and ideas but

appreciating that they are in responsible roles. They see the

benefits of new technology to reduce workload and improve

performance but are often frustrated by the lack of action to

embrace it by seniors.

Other UK sectors, such as construction and Oil & Gas, were

found not to be affected as prominently. However, since the

study, a prolonged period with low oil price and subsequent

layoffs resulted in a significant number of workers retiring or

leaving this sector permanently. This represents a significant

loss of expertise which will not be easily re-established.

Maturing Technology The last decade has seen significant growth in the physical

applications for electronic devices. This has been driven

primarily by mobile phone technology through the evolution of

sub-systems like cameras, motion detection, navigation, display

technology and wireless connectivity. Miniaturisation has been

necessary to keep phone size practical and the economy of scale

that comes with the consumer market has meant that research

and development budgets available to refine products and

components are far larger than available to the heavy

engineering industry. There has been maturity in networked

systems, both wired and wireless, and in communication

through adoption of standards controlling the way that data is

stored, transmitted, interpreted and displayed.

The internet has given us far more access to information the

quantity of which can, at times, be overwhelming and efficient

identification of relevant online content is a skill of modern

times. Search engines allow us to track down information on

almost anything and video sites like YouTube allow us to

engage with multimedia content from casual captures by mobile

phone to professionally produced videos and recordings of

formal lectures. Using these libraries of information, we can

gain knowledge on almost anything through almost all our

senses. We can see it, hear it, read it and, if we’re prepared to

take the next step, we can make direct contact with those

publishing the material. At the same time, this wealth of

knowledge challenges those that have built up a lifetime of

experience. The accessibility of often unqualified knowledge on

Internet sites means that traditional experts without digital skills

can miss the opportunity to connect with modern customers. In

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Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 4

the modern age, the concept of “Survival of the Fittest” is

frequently affected by our individual ability to use digital

technology and communication.

For innovators, this has been a fruitful time as new ideas can be

explored by connecting compatible components that would have

previously been a proprietary development. Consequently,

there’s more time to solve the problem and solve it robustly.

The attention that the development of autonomous vehicles

presently receives suggests that this may yield the next leap in

technology. The challenge of autonomous cars functioning

alongside non-autonomous vehicles is significant and, if solved,

will change transportation. In the Marine field, fully

autonomous ships are planned to be operational within the next

three years (Haridy, 2017). Airlines, however, continue with

piloted aircraft despite the feasibility of planes operating

autonomously for some time. While it may be technically

possible to soon operate unmanned ships, it may not be

desirable for several reasons1. This suggests that although we

may not see unmanned ships, ships are likely to begin operating

with a growing number of autonomous systems, monitored and

maintained on board by a small crew. These systems will be

complex and may need to be maintained and repaired at sea.

Rapid access to operational and maintenance procedures and the

capability to access additional insight when unexpected

conditions are encountered will be crucial to keeping these

systems running. This cannot be achieved with paper based

filing systems or their electronic equivalent since information is

not presented with relevance or in context to the way a query is

asked. This leaves a linearly searching process through

individual documents and information sources which is

inefficient and slow.

The Internet as we experience it today is not an ideal solution

for managing connected information and maintaining systems

although it has a major role. As a generic information service it

requires extended time to identify relevant information and

longer qualify the accuracy of information. For example, a

search for maintenance technical documents from a

manufacture’s website for a piece of equipment five years old

may return many results. It will be necessary to review each

document to determine the relevance, check part numbers and

availability of work processes to repair a component in

accordance with recommended procedures. If information on

the precise piece of equipment cannot be found but something

with similar specifications is available, the Engineer may choose

to combine their experience with the documentation for the next

steps. At this point, the repair of a critical piece of

infrastructure becomes dominated by a human factors problem.

1 In addition to unforeseen technical incidents on board, it

should be kept in mind that ships are often relied upon for deep

sea rescues when an incident is outside the range of traditional

Search and Rescue services. This capability cannot be provided

by unmanned vessels

For the complex electronic systems, this is even more of a

challenge.

Shipyards: Authors of information The single biggest opportunity to collect information on a ship

is during design, production, commissioning and delivery.

During this time a considerable amount of documentation is

authored, generated and communicated. It is collected,

sometimes in a structured folder system in a file store but more

recently use of document control and Product Life-Cycle

Modelling systems (PLM) has become popular. These should

be used to control the life cycles of individual pieces of

information so that the latest versions are always known and

superseded documents clearly marked. While there is some

document hand over during the delivery of a vessel it is, today,

seen more a formality rather than something that will contribute

to the vessel’s upkeep. Documentation can be limited to the

essential information if it is not written into the contract and, in

some cases, non-existent if a competitor to the shipyard is be

involved in Through-Life support. In these scenarios

information that belongs to the ship is effectively being thrown

away because the operator does not have access to it.

Most of the documentation created by shipyards is only relevant

to the delivery of a well-engineered and matured design and is

of no value to Through-Life phase. The CAD model will

contain many details only relevant to the fabrication process

such as cutting and grinding information, templates, jigs and

lifting arrangements. Sanitation of the captured information is

necessary. Ship Owners and Operators are only just becoming

aware of the depth of information available to them now and are

beginning to specify their document handover requirements in

contracts. Similarly, Shipyards could educate their potential

customers on the value of handover packages as part of their

added value proposition and can take the initiative to deliver a

detailed information package with infrastructure that will help

the operator manage the vessel. Delivering a good Digital Twin

system may be something that fosters a repeatable business

relationship with an owner or operator if any early issues with

the vessel are efficiently resolved.

Summarising the Information Challenge To prepare for way that knowledge needs to be retained and

accessed in the future three challenges need addressing:

1. During the Ship Design and Production Process we

already electronically capture information relevant to

the production process, component and system

installation and commissioning. This information

needs to be qualified and packaged up for operators so

that it will continue to be useful in subsequent phases

of the vessels life.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 5

2. During operation, this information needs to be actively

maintained and updated to any changes that are made

throughout the life of a vessel through to recycling.

3. Rapid exposure of relevant information to those that

operate and maintain the vessel is required because

they may need to act quickly to prevent or mitigate

failure of critical components.

The first two are primarily operational challenges. The final

point can be addressed through better software design and

understanding of operator experience.

EXPERIENCING AVEVA’S DIGITAL TWIN AVEVA’s Digital Twin technology is predominantly Browser

based, either through standard applications available for most

operating systems, such as Internet Explorer or Chrome,

embedded Browsers on mobile devices or proprietary

applications developed by AVEVA to delivery an enhanced

experience of the information inside the Digital Twin. This

means that the core of the system standardises the way it serves

out pieces of information and the relationships between them.

Client applications only focus on the task of accessing and

presenting information, and may be optimised for specific tasks

or technology depending on the user scenario. AVEVA has

developed two main platforms for visualisation Digital Twin

information, AVEVA NET Portal and AVEVA Engage, with

other interfaces, such as Design-in-Context being used to bring

Digital Twin information into Design and Engineering

applications like AVEVA’s Everything 3D platform.

Figure 3, A screenshot from AVEVA NET Portal for a pump, highlighting operational parameters,

3D representation and 2D manuafactures documentation.

AVEVA NET Portal The Portal application is Internet browser based which gives it

the opportunity to be virtually platform independent. This

solution is aimed at individual users who would access the

Digital Twin from their desktop or personal devices. The

display follows the format of a typical website with information

on each physical component being densely presented and it may

be necessary to scroll the screen to view the full range of

information.

This display is customisable with main component views

displaying dataset information, 2D documentation and 3D

model view, with all reference information organised by context

into a tree display, Figure 3. The user initially accesses

information through a simple field like a typical Internet Search

engine or through a configurable tree which may initially appear

like Product Model Tree. Rules are used to configure the

branches of the tree capturing different concepts in the structure

of the Digital Twin dataset. This may mean that items may

appear multiple times in different branches if relevant to the

concept being represented. Depending on the relevancy of

different concepts the tree may be customised for individual

users or user groups based on the need in their respective

domain experience or personal choice.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 6

Figure 4, Navigating through information using context sensitive hyperlinks in the NET Portal Application (Top), and Engage Application (Bottom).

Although each operates on a completely different software platform they both use the same principles to access information.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 7

Hyperlinks allow the user to browse through the different

concepts, and will include links to documents, drawings and 3D

models. Display of standard document formats is achieved

using browser extensions if file formats are not supported.

Some viewers support area based hot-spotting which enables

hyperlinking of references in propriety documents to be

integrated into the wider Digital Twin system. Including this

capability creates a consistent experience for the user regardless

of the information they are reviewing.

Clicking through hyperlinks allows the user to explore

information or a specific problem in a more easily digestible

journey through each of the documents, Figure 3, the use of

standard browser technology allows an organisation to deploy a

consistent user experience regardless of location and devices.

Figure 5, The touch screen display of AVEVA Engage provides an intuitive graphical context through which information can be accessed.

AVEVA Engage AVEVA’s Engage platform is an application designed to

present an enhanced experience using large format, touch

enabled screens to support team based decision support. Engage

focuses on using the 3D Model to find information, taking

advantage of higher specification computers and graphics cards.

Hyperlinks are again used to access information but, unlike

NET Portal, far more use is made of symbolic representations

and iconography to keep the amount of information displayed

on the screen to a lower density.

Users may explore the 3D model by walking around it and

clipping the view. Transparent views through the model are

used to illustrate the location of individual components and the

extent of systems. Once components have been highlighted

using touch or mouse, menus are used to narrow the selection

and, subsequently, provide access to the range of documents

associated with the selected components.

The “information discovery” experience is similar to the one

used in NET Portal but the display is optimised for team

viewing, Figure 5, and for large format documents like

schematic diagrams and drawings. In fact, the application

allows information to be bookmarked or collected as users move

through information and written to Microsoft Office

applications like OneNote, if integrated. It is envisioned that

with this capability the solution may be used to plan remote

activities or support incident response teams operating onsite

from a centralised office location.

YOUR INFORMATION, IN CONTEXT To rapidly access specific information thought needs to be given

to the means which users want to search for it. How users think

about finding the information may change based on their

domain experience, role or location. From a User Experience

perspective, a variety of ways are needed access information and

if possible provide opportunity to tailor the presentation or

priority of search tools to individual users.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 8

The simple text searches are familiar to all Internet users but if

the search term is imprecise or you don’t exactly know what you

are looking for you are faced with checking every returned

result for relevance or context. How many pages should you

check before you are sure that what you are looking for is not

there? More effective ways of finding information are required.

We naturally create information structures to organise the data

of complex engineering projects as a way of understanding

them. The tree structures have been traditionally used to

organise and access information representing different Product

Models, Weight, Space, Functional and System Breakdown

Structures. Each is a context by which the structure of the ship

can be understood. There is no reason the user interface cannot

provide all or start to combine the contexts together. If a 3D

Model is available, information can be accessed graphically.

Individual components can be identified visually and selected

using mouse or touch screen. Graphical models can also

provide a spatial breakdown structure using spaces (geometric

volumes) that may represent tanks, compartments, cargo holds

or fire zones to collect and expose components contained within

each volume. For this approach to work the key elements of the

system are not the documents or files but the information

contained within them which represent, graphically or

parametrically the physical components of the ship. These are

the components that may be organised by breakdown structures,

contained within spaces or compartments and drawn in a 3D

model. For those operating or engineering the ship this is often

the most logical way of navigating the Digital Twin.

Figure 6, The using the Class Model to associate concepts and digital information with for an individual component in a ship, a sensor.

Modelling the Data: Components, Classes and

Relationships To efficiently model real-world challenges selection of the right

data structure has always been important. Object Orientation is

a mature concept, used at the core of many software

development processes, which captures, models or simulates

complex problems by breaking it down into smaller functional

components known as Classes. Each Class contains a set of key

characteristics that describe the capability of the Class in some

way. These capabilities can sometimes be simple text or

numerical pieces of information or defined in terms of other

Classes. Relationships can be defined between the Classes to

give the information more meaning and build context into the

wider data model. A typical example used in software

development is the idea of a Car “Class” which has several

instances of the Wheel “Class”. The Wheel class may have

characteristics of diameter, thickness and tyre pressure for

example. The structure of the Wheel Class is only defined once,

but reused for each wheel the Car has, perhaps with different

parameter values. The Car Class makes explicit reference for

each Wheel it contains. By adding other concepts as Classes to

the Car a more complete Digital Twin Data Model is defined.

By populating the characteristics of each Class the Data Model

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Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 9

can be used to represent individual car models and unique

vehicle life-cycles.

Since so much of Engineering involves the use of software it is

natural that this concept extends into the way users interact with

internal data models. It is not unusual to be able to select a

graphical ‘thing’ in a user interface and have a grid type control

which displays the corresponding characteristic, whether it be a

digital representation of a Pump, a line in a drawing or a

financial transaction. Exposure to this type of data structure has

led to the development of an equivalent concept in Engineering

known as the Class Model.

Class Models are used to standardise the characteristics of

individual components within a project or business and in some

engineering domains are being adopted as true industry

standards. They usually contain Classes that represent physical

Engineering components, such a Pumps, Valves and Pipelines

but may also represent documents, drawings and diagrams or

business artefacts and information. Much like Object Orientated

software development, Class Models can be extended to

incorporate new descriptions but care should be taken not to

innovate too much by departing from standard definitions since

reuse of an existing model definition is a major benefit. To

effectively apply the Class Model concept within a Digital Twin

definition of associations between Classes are required so that

the context of relationships between different pieces of

information is captured. For example, a typical drawing of a

piping system contains 2D elements, e.g. lines and arcs, and text

that represent Engineering Components when visualised.

However, the internal data structure of the drawing itself only

contains these 2D elements and does not know which represent

Pumps, Pipes or Valves. To make use of this drawing in a

Digital Twin, the drawing, and the Pumps, Pipes and Valves are

represented as instances of their own type of Class.

Relationships (also instances of Classes) defined between the

drawing and each represented component to capture the

knowledge that the drawing contains these artefacts.

Consequently, the drawing instance may be interrogated to

understand which Pumps may be found on the drawing and the

Pump may be interrogated to find out which drawings the Pump

may be found on. Of course, implicit in this is that each project

artefact is unique and only ever represented once. Scaling this

concept across the entire project provides the opportunity to

track every unique engineering component on any piece of

documentation, drawing or otherwise anywhere in the project.

The data model remains simple, just classes and characteristics,

regardless of the size of the project.

The relationships defined between both physical components

and documents are the key to building an effective Digital Twin.

They capture how the engineering components relate to each

other, what kinds information is available and which documents

hold it. These different relationships build a rich taxonomy

describing how the project dataset is structured and exposing

different ways of accessing and understanding the information.

The Pump, for example, may be displayed on various drawings

and diagrams. It may be represented in a 3D Model, be part of a

System, connected to by the ends of pipes, cables and control

systems. It will be inside a compartment and part of a weight

breakdown structure. These characteristics can be captured

using a Class Model data structure and exposed by the Digital

Twin.

What this highlights is that the power of a Digital Twin comes

from the data model used to capture and exploit the information.

An engineering project already contains a massive amount of

information and it is impractical to process this manually.

Automatic methods are necessary to extract data from separate

sources of information and build relationships. Keeping

structure of the conceptual data model simple, like the Class

Model, allows it to be extended through configuration rather

than customisation or redesign. It means that as the definition

of Class Models for different types of engineering projects

mature it will become easier to build Digital Twins due to

standardisation and easier to author software tools which exploit

the data since the conceptual model structure follows the same

format for all projects.

Browsers and Hyperlinks: Connecting the

Information to the User With the Class Model a representation of what and where

information is, methods of retrieving the information are needed

so that it can be presented to users. Today the Internet and the

Browser technology used to present information to users has

become mature across a great range of devices and a large range

of document standards are supported. This means that

deploying information to users can be relatively straightforward

as all they need to do is access an Internet Service on a Server

from their Browser. Key to this process is the Hyperlink which,

although pivotal technology to the Internet, is a simple

reference, address or location of a document or piece of

information. To make the Digital Twin more effective the

Hyperlink concept can somewhat be extended because some of

the documents referenced may contain considerable amounts of

information and the time to find individual references should be

minimised. For example, if the display indicates that a Pump

can be visualised within a 3D Model, when the model is loaded,

the viewer should focus on the Pump not the entire scene. This

requires a richer Hyperlink definition which can exploit the

Class Model, the relationship between the Pump and the 3D

Model, to tell the software to load the 3D Model and then search

for the Pump representation. This concept can be extended to

any document type. However, since this is not normal

behaviour for Internet Browsers rich documents such as

drawings and diagrams may require specific Browser “Addins”

with the capability to focus upon the information being

identified.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 10

The display of text based Hyperlinks in Internet Browsers

adopts a standard presentation by being highlighted in a

different text colour or underline. It can change colour or the

image of the mouse cursor when it is correspondingly placed

over the top. For non-text Hyperlinks no such standard exists.

Graphical Hyperlinks in webpages are often specifically

designed to stand out. However, in many forms of

documentation the content was not designed to be Hyperlinked

and in the case of drawings and diagrams a degree of innovation

is required on to design graphical overlays or “Hot spotting”

that will stand out over active items of information. Again,

these types of solution may require specific Browser “Addins”

to deliver this capability.

The degree to which a Digital Twin is useful will come down to

the way the user interface is designed and critically within this is

the effectiveness of Hyperlinked information. The display of

new pieces of information should remain in context as the user

moves through a selection process for the experience to feel

consistent.

Figure 7, Hyperlinked information in NET Portal often takes the format of a traditional tree (left), but in

Engage (right) more symbology and iconography is used to give better clarity.

ASSEMBLING A DIGITAL TWIN The Digital Twin’s primary objective is to make quick and easy

retrieval of information from the wide array of documents and

data sources covering the vessel. During handover, these

documents have been traditionally passed on as individual

pieces of information disconnected from each other. Hopefully

in the modern age these documents are transferred digitally

although there will be many operational vessels where hard

copy was the only option. Assembling and connecting these

data sources back together is a significant challenge. The

Digital Twin technology can assist this collation process by

publishing data, exposing inconsistencies and providing

automatic searching processes but a reality is that there will

remain a need for manual effort. The best time to take on this

process is during handover when documents are already being

processed, checked for consistency and when there has been

minimal time for documentation to become disorganised.

During this period the opportunity to obtaining further

information from the shipyard or fabricator is open and should

be positive to the business relationship. Ideally, shipyards

should offer Digital Twin solutions to their customers as an

additional service so that more effective documentation is

delivered before it becomes obsolete or disorganised. Shipyards

are in a better position to deliver these solutions since they

should already retain the documentation within controlled

document repositories or PLM systems. However, this approach

has yet to be adopted at any significant level in the wider marine

industry.

Assembling the Digital Twin from Separate

Documents Creating a Digital Twin from separate documents is by far the

most challenging approach because often the context and

description of individual artefacts may need to be manual

established. Software tools can be developed to assist with the

cross referencing of information insider documents using

searching techniques. A good approach is to identify any data

sources that present critical indexes, such as Equipment or

Piping Lists, which describe large numbers of physical

components with their unique identification number or ‘Tags’.

From these, the context of items and the format of identification

numbers is established. Regular Expressions can then be used

to search for unique identifiers in other documents. Data sheets

may be used to establish parameters associated with

components. Manual classifications and contexts can be applied

to components by developing temporary datasets which describe

this information. This can be done in simple spreadsheet tables,

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 11

electronically scanned and added to the Class Model data

structure like data from other sources.

In respect to specific document types:

Drawings can be searched to identify any texts that correspond

to unique identification numbers. The context or type of

drawing may be difficult to establish unless systematic

numbering is used for file names. If this is unavailable, drawing

lists which classify the different types may be developed as a

spreadsheet table.

Text Documents in various formats can be searched using, for

example, Regular Expressions to identify component unique

identifiers. Certain documents, such as Datasheets and

manufacturer’s information, may be specifically formatted to

present the characteristic information for associated

components. This parametric information may be extracted and

stored as data associated with the component in the Class

Model. This data can then be used for searches, understanding

systems, context and support the innovation of other

presentations and innovations in the future.

Table Documents and Spreadsheets may be processed in a

similar way to text documents but the organisation of data

should make process of extracting parameters less error prone.

Datasets like equipment and piping lists may be critical to the

development of the Digital Twin as these may be the only place

where an exhaustive list of each type of component and unique

identifiers may be catalogued.

Diagrams & P&IDs may be processed in the same way as

drawings, identifying any text associated with symbols. As

these documents should be more symbolic than general

drawings there is an opportunity to analyse the connectivity of

symbols and lines to establish the topology and relationships

although it is not trivial to develop these kind of analytical

processes. This information may be more readily available if it

can be expressed using standards such as ISO 15926.

Scanned Documents may also be processed using Optical

Character Recognition (OCR) techniques to convert image

information into digital characters. Once converted the

document may be processed like any of the others. Of course,

image quality will ultimately determine the success of this

approach.

Databases or any other large datasets may be processed if

suitable interfaces exist. This may also include repositories

such as Document Management or PLM systems. Considering

that these systems provide their own management functions

there should not be a need for the Digital Twin to replicate data

held in these systems. A good software API or interface should

allow the Digital Twin to search the external data source

seamlessly as if the data was held as part of the Class Model.

Assembling the Digital Twin from CAE Software The process of assembling Digital Twins from Computer Aided

Engineering (CAE) software is easier since the relationships,

characteristics, representations and contexts of all artefacts are

captured and maintained as part of the design and fabrication

process. In this respect the CAE project should be considered

the primary source of information for a Digital Twin and all

other documentation checked against it where possible.

Furthermore, a 3D representation of the Digital Twin should be

available providing a graphical context to all the component

information in the project. Key information in the CAE project

will be that every component will have a unique identifier and

relationships between components and to documentation may

already be represented. These can be written directly to the

Digital Twin without the need for inference or assumption. In

the last couple of years Class Models are started to be used

during the Engineering phase of projects as a way of controlling

consistency and completeness of information in the project. Not

only does this benefit the project by improving the quality of

data, the Class Model can be reused either directly or mapped to

an alternative when the time comes to deliver the Digital Twin

for Through-Life support.

HANDOVER Handover, when an owner (or operator) begins to receive

documentation to commission, operate and maintain a ship is

the ideal time to assemble a Digital Twin if not already being

supplied by the shipyard. The documentation may not be

organised in a way that’s beneficial to the owner or the

immediate commissioning tasks and it will be necessary to

review and check the information for validity and completeness.

Transferred documentation should be routinely specified in the

contract but it has often been an oversight and left until the end

of the project. In the Oil & Gas domain, Handover

documentation has only been fully specified in contracts for

project started within the last decade. Even so, a recent study

(AVEVA, 2017) found that only 32% of projects received the

information they requested. It can be challenging when useful

information authored by the shipyard isn’t made available and

costly to rectify if not specified contractually. Ideally, the

information will be handed over in digital formats as paper

based information creates additional clerical overhead to process

and store. Paper documents and plans can of course be scanned

into digital formats. Representing this information digitally

makes it easier to manage, index and retrieve. With typical file

storage and management systems thought needs to be given to

the organisation of the documents. Generic management

systems do not necessary give individual documents contexts or

attempt to link information described within the documents

together, unlike the Digital Twin.

Another advantage of Digital documents is the ability to process

the information held inside, exposing the component

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 12

characteristics, compile new datasets and summaries. This kind

of activity could only have been done manually with paper

documents, a laborious activity that would also introduce a high

degree of human error. However, with digital data, algorithms

and processes can be developed to automatically scan

documents. There will still be errors but these should now be

more systematic and easier to track down, particularly if

scanning algorithms provide good feedback. This approach is a

fundamental process of building the Digital Twin and provides

users with the ability to access their information consistent with

the ‘Big Data’ concept.

Building the Digital Twin as the Handover starts provides the

opportunity to get improved access to qualified project

information straight away. This will support the

Commissioning and all subsequent project process by making

Handover information more accessible and reduce time to find

specific information. Considering that Handover information

must be processed anyway, the Digital Twin can speed this

process up by qualifying correctness and completeness and

providing management feedback on quality and status. Even so,

processing Handover information does take time, sometimes

years in large facilities like offshore FPSOs. Here use of the

Digital Twin has shown to reduce the time to validate handover

information with the most significant factor being the

achievement of a higher rate of data validation earlier.

Case Study: BP Angola Block 18 Block 18 is a group of subsea oil wells operated by BP 100

miles off the coast of Angola, part of the Greater Plutonio

offshore development. Serviced by a single FPSO, it was one of

the early projects to use AVEVA NET for handover of

engineering and facility documentation. Like all projects of this

kind several major contractors were involved and as first oil (1st

October 2007) approached the engineering information from all

involved needed to be collected and verified.

Figure 8 The Greater Plutonio FPSO at Block 18.

The facility is characterised by ~160,000 tags – individual

component identification numbers, 2,550,000 tag attributes and

180,000 documents. Traditionally it would have been a

significant manual clerical task to cross reference information

within documents to confirm the engineering information

associated with each tag. Using AVEVA NET to capture tag

and cross reference document information, 96% of tags were

captured before first oil, whereas 65% of tags would have been

captured using the traditional process, which may have

proceeded up to two years beyond 1st oil, Figure 9.

Figure 9, Comparison of using a Digital Twin for handover against

traditional manual clerical methods.

In this project, the use of AVEVA NET to create an electronic

Digital Twin for handover generated the following savings:

25% reduction of engineering man-hours.

5% cost reduction in the cost of major equipment due

to streamlined documentation.

10% reduction in commissioning costs through better

access to documentation.

10% reduction in operational and maintenance services

due to reduced need for site surveys.

More significantly these projects highlighted the need for

Information Management to be an accepted project discipline

rather than something delegated to the IT services team,

something which, a decade later, now takes a leading role in

these major projects.

Considering the impact of AVEVA NET in this phase of the

project it is perhaps surprising to hear that this early example of

Digital Twin technology is likely to be now phased out a decade

since the vessel went in to operation. It was configured to

address the handover challenge and the system may not have

been actively adapted to the current challenges meaning that

information was not as easy to find as it once was. This

situation highlights the need to maintain and synchronise the

Digital Twin to changes in the ship or facility and the people

that interact with both so that it may continue to deliver the

value initial invested.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 13

ASSEMBLING DIGITAL TWINS FOR EXISTING

SHIPS As time passes beyond Production, Commissioning and

Handover it becomes progressively harder to assemble a Digital

Twin. The scale of the task depends on the efficiency of existing

document management practices. If good systems are in place

and followed by all involved in caring for the Ship, then the task

of assembling the project would be of a similar scale to that of a

new vessel. Challenges occur with documentation stored in

emails or on isolated computers. Unlike the need for

information synchronisation during the build phase of the

vessel, during operation lower priority information may not be

actively synchronised in such a way that a “single source of

truth” is maintained. The use of a Digital Twin should change

this by providing an easily accessible point where the “truth”

can always be found. However, the success of this solution will

only be achieved if the Digital Twin is easy to use, to update

and is of relevance to users. Mandated use of a poorly designed

system is unlikely to be successful adopted.

Figure 10, A Bubbleview of HMS Belfast inside AVEVA’s E3D Design application. This ship was launched in 1938 and effectively

predates digital technology. Using Laser Scanning a Digital Twin based on 3D information could be developed.

Many of the techniques used for building a Digital Twin during

handover can be employed if the vessel has years of operation.

Documents accumulated since delivery are likely to be simpler

and self-contained compared with the build phase. Other types

of documents and information can also be considered for

integration:

Optical/Laser Scanning techniques are a recently matured

electronic technology for capturing in, three-dimensions, the

geometry and imagery of areas surrounding the survey location.

Various types of methods are available from typical survey

devices which sit on top of a tripod to hand held scanners that

are far more mobile. Mobile phone applications which are

capable of capturing geometry using the integrated camera are

also appearing although the accuracy of this approach is limited

by the cheaper technology and difficulty in capturing surfaces

with limited features or texture. This technology has become

more affordable as it matures and provides an alternative to

digital models built using traditional surveying exercises which

take much longer. Of course, areas that are difficult to see

because they are hidden behind other objects, such as the deck

above routed services, are challenging to capture.

Optical Surveying techniques are excellent methods of capturing

the “as-built” and “as-operated” state of a vessel and provides

the means to incorporate 3D Views of the Ship without

requiring a 3D Model and can be used to capture and manage

changes to compartment contents throughout the life of the

vessel whereas the original 3D Product Model is unlikely to be

actively maintained. Techniques for hot spotting can be

introduced so that areas of the capture scenes can highlight

specific Components allowing access to documents although

this capability would generally need to be manually configured.

With access to these scanned models combined with and

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 14

documentation, the use of the Digital Twin to prepare

maintenance, refit specifications and work packages becomes

more integrated with the opportunity to include content from the

system directly in these new documents.

Photographs can be included and much like optical surveying

capture the current as-operated state of the vessel. With the

growth of integrated cameras on mobile devices it’s very easy to

capture images and often easier to take photos of fixed text

information such as equipment serial numbers and operating

details. These images can be easily integrated into the Digital

Twin using integrated ‘Apps’ like email or Cloud based file

synchronisation software such as DropBox or OneDrive.

Videos can be rapidly created and included much like

photographs. These are very useful for capturing processes such

as maintenance procedures, removal routes etc.

Are 3D Models Really Needed? Few ships that have been operating for several years will have

an equivalent and updated 3D Product model. There isn’t the

need to keep a maintained 3D Product model when most

engineering work can be accomplished with 2D methods. This

situation is unlikely to change particularly considering the ease

in which Engineering areas can be captured using optical

scanning. The 3D Model is just another context in which

project information can be accessed and if it’s possible to

efficiently access information using other methods then a 3D

Model is not critical to the success of a Digital Twin.

But this does not have mean that there is no 3D Content or 3D

Contextual ways of accessing information and it is possible to

innovate the use of other 3D models associated with the ship.

The Stability compartment model for example could provide 3D

Context to safety critical information relevant to the ISM code.

Lower resolution 3D Models used for conceptual design could

also be used and considering that these have often been

developed in lower end/single user CAD software these

representations of the vessel can be maintained at a more cost-

effective rate.

Low Tech “Digital Twins” Not all vessels are large enough or detailed enough to require

Digital Twins with complex IT infrastructure and often the

Operators may not have the key people required to maintain

these systems. They will still have the need to access

information and are probably more reliant on mobile devices.

Since Browser technology is based around the HTML web page

format which can be visualised on any platform this can be a

starting point for building a simple Website which aggregates

links to documents held in a file server or document control

systems. Photographs and images can provide visual backbone

to access information and with hot spots being used to link

specific parts, of equipment for example, to the documentation

associated with that Component. This approach is straight

forward to implement by someone with basic website building

skills and where the task of integrating the breadth of

information available on the vessel is manageable by a single

person.

THE DIGITAL TWIN IN OPERATION AND

MAINTENANCE Success of the Digital Twin depends on how well these systems

are adopted by potential users and how available the information

is to where it is needed. The Users should be involved in the

development process to capture their needs and opinions. There

may be a desire to have wider accessibility to information

through mobile devices and on board which can add somewhat

to the complexity and cost in terms of IT configuration. Starting

small can be a better option to begin with and pilot trials can be

used to get understanding the value of a Digital Twin before

investing in a wider document processing exercise. This is also

a good opportunity to gauge feedback from users.

An alternative route to adoption that achieves success is to aim

pilot studies at higher management. This allows decision

makers the ability to experience technology that only technical

staff may have access to during normal operation. Such

approaches may require tailoring the display of information to

reduce the amount of detail and highlight the essence of how the

Digital Twin operates. Solutions such as AVEVA Engage make

far greater use of the 3D Model and the graphical information in

the Digital Twin on large display hardware. These alternative

ways of accessing the same information may not always be

available to front line engineers but the experience helps expose

the Digital Twin to those who may rarely have direct access to

the Ship.

Extending the Use Case The Digital Twin, in isolation, focuses on connecting

information and presenting the user with efficient methods of

finding information. The user will want to do something with

the information they find. For urgent repair and maintenance

situations it might just be a need to print something out.

However, in routine situations the need to author information

becomes apparent and this isn’t something the Digital Twin

aims to support directly. The user may have to rely on copying

and pasting between software systems which isn’t always an

efficient way to work.

Considering the ubiquitous use of Internet Browsers for

presenting information there is no reason why the Digital Twin

could not integrate other Browser based applications into the

experience. Today there may not be a great range of these types

of application available since they will often be used to solve

specific challenges but as Web Browsers aren’t platform

dependant it makes a persuasive argument for adoption of this

technology as a primary viewing tool. The emergence of Cloud

technology for hosting the applications will further improve the

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 15

adoption rate since it will not be necessary to for the operator to

host the IT systems on their managed hardware.

Work Planning and Planned Maintenance are examples of daily

operational situations where the Digital Twin can support the

creation of transient information needed to support the life-cycle

activities often with outputs being absorbed back into the

system.

Maintaining the Digital Twin The Digital Twin will only remain relevant if kept up to date

with changes in the ship. The system may be used to plan

physical modifications and changes but once complete these

need to be absorbed back into the dataset. Care needs to be

taken when building the Digital Twin to avoid development of a

system that is too complex to maintain, otherwise it will not be

kept up to date.

Some early examples of Digital Twin projects delivered by

AVEVA were withdrawn some years later when they became

perceived as not providing value when cost cutting was needed.

Without tailoring to user needs and implementing efficient

maintenance processes the value that the Digital Twin can

continue to deliver becomes reduced. It takes a good degree of

commitment to keep these systems up to date and when

achieved the value delivered is measurable. Considering the

large initial effort required to assemble a Digital Twin, a

pragmatic approach to the level of complexity and ease of

maintenance is highly recommended.

Maintaining a Digital Twin is no different to assembling a new

system for a ship that has been operating some time. As

covered previously, this means integrating more self-contained

documents into the system, use of more image based media

types such as photographs and videos, and optical scanning if

available. The greatest difference between these two phases in

the Digital Twin’s life-cycle is that during initial assembly a

large amount of information is being incorporated as a bulk

process. During operation, information may not be added to the

project daily by every user. Therefore, the process of

integration needs to be clearly captured or an individual given

responsibility to ensure that the quality of information remains

high and that documents are successfully integrated to

associated data.

Case Study: Lundin Lundin Norway, a subsidiary of Lundin Petroleum, carries out

oil & gas activities on the Norwegian shelf. The basis for

Lundin’s strategy for value-creation is their ability to utilise

existing engineering information to create new knowledge.

Lundin achieves this using a Digital Twin through AVEVA

Engage for the Edvard Grieg platform, located around 111 miles

west of Stavanger, Norway, in the North Sea.

For operations, maintenance and repair, Lundin’s philosophy,

according to operations manager Geir Sjøsåsen, (Sjøsåsen,

2016), is that “Everything that can be done onshore should be

done onshore. Our offshore personnel should only execute

planned work. I believe the 3D model makes it easier to realise

this. Mechanical, electrical, instrument and process personnel in

operations are the primary users of the 3D model. All

engineering information required to plan a repair job is

presented in one screen: parts, equipment history, future jobs

etc. There is no need to access multiple systems to find

engineering information. It’s all here, which is a big advantage.”

While using the application, Lundin identified they could easily

find highly detailed engineering information, all the way down

to specific tag details. “We can, for example, from a 3D object,

open the documents and view P&IDs,” says Sjøsåsen. “We can

see if we have associated data and whether we have done some

work on it before. You don’t have to leave the 3D model; you

find all the data you need here. That’s elegant. You don’t have

to access three or four systems to find the engineering

information you need for the job.”

THE DIGITAL TWIN IN THE FUTURE Today, Digital Twin Projects primarily exploit information in

document based data since this represents the greatest present

challenge, i.e., finding and retrieving relevant information in

context with the users’ current questions. As daily changes in

these datasets are often limited, from a software design

perspective, tools to support the associated business

requirements will mature quickly. The next progression in this

technology will be the support of dynamic and real time

information. This is a logical extension that comes with

experiencing the Digital Twin such that if the 3D representation

or a schematic model of a system can be visualised, can the real-

time state be displayed as well? Sensor information has always

been collected from systems but technological advances today

allow more information to be collected more easily and then

stored. This information must be exposed in the right way. Jet

aircraft cockpits several decades ago were dominated by large

numbers of dials and switches with additional engineers on the

largest planes required to monitor those displays. Today

information is displayed on a few digital displays with most

information hidden unless it falls outside expected

characteristics, subsequently triggering alarms or notifications.

By using electronic displays which expose this information

associated with hyperlinks for deeper access into the Digital

Twin, a quicker and richer understanding of the situation can be

achieved. In this role, Digital Twins can fulfil the need for

active Decision Support systems providing the opportunity to

mitigate the propagation of incidents into unsafe or uneconomic

scenarios when something unforeseen happens.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 16

Supporting Big Data and IIoT In the last few years the term “Big Data” has been used to

describe the opportunity to improve the operation or

functionality of a system by analysing data collected during

operation. The promise that Big Data makes is that if you

collect all the data you have, store it over time and analyse

trends and changes then a new understanding of the systems will

emerge and positive operational changes may be exposed.

Since the marine domain is challenging to operate in it has

always engaged in as much condition monitoring as practically

feasible. In recent years, technology has made it easier and

cheaper to monitor more information. In the jet aircraft cockpit

example described in the previous section, without an electronic

or mechanical connection between dial and sensor there was no

way to monitor the system. This required a pipe, wire or rod to

be routed for each individual piece of information monitored.

With modern electronic network technology, information can be

encoded into packets of data and sent digitally to monitoring

systems using a single wire. More recently, the introduction of

wireless technology allows this information to be transmitted

without the need to route wiring although it must be said that

ships represent a major challenge due to the Faraday Cage effect

resulting from enclosed metal structures. The relative ease in

which information can be transferred between systems using

these techniques is described using another technology phase

the “Internet of Things” or IoT and with the “Industrial Internet

of Things” or IIoT focusing on the challenges involved in

communicating between large engineering systems rather than

consumer technology. The improved communications

bandwidth that this technology will herald will create an

increased need for Digital Twin systems to understand the

historical implications of data being collected as systems

operate.

Integrated Systems: The Digital Ship Onboard ship where command and control is typically

centralised on the bridge and in the machinery control room

there has always been a need to communicate and observe

systems remotely located around the ship. The growth of IIoT

technology makes it easier to communicate with these systems,

for more information to be transferred and to improve the way

that operators interact with this information. Digitally encoded

information is processed by electronic systems and computers

which have become relatively cheap due to the growth of

consumer electronics and the ability to manufacture generic

hardware which supports different scenarios and industries. The

bespoke part is then the software which since it does not require

specialist manufacturing tools can be easily tailored and

changed to fit a specific industry, ship installation or operator

requirements. Since software capability evolves at a far faster

rate compared with the marine industry in general, developers

can rapidly explore opportunities to enhance displays with

graphical representations and other interactive technology like

touch capability. This means that instead of having to relocate

to operate a valve or move a switch on a specific system, many

systems can be operated from a single point interface. This has

been a great opportunity for equipment and systems

manufactures since they can market their products by exposing

customers to their Integrated Management Systems in addition

to performance data collected by their hardware. The ability to

provide these combined hardware and software systems that

bring together both command and control has resulted in

systems with a broader range of capabilities being delivered by

individual vendors who can also provide the integration and the

Type Approval required by Classification Societies before they

can be used onboard. In this respect, it’s very likely that

equipment vendors will enter the Digital Twin market in the

future because they’d already have created their own brand of

Digital Ship. This raises the challenge that there may be

situations where multiple Digital Twins may be used by an

operator going against the rational of a “Single Source of

Truth”. Since a single vendor specialising in a specific area is

unlikely to have the skills or desire to take on the business cases

to develop an all-encompassing Digital Twin and Integrated

Management System onboard the Ship that supports the entire

range of operator requirements, the use of multiple systems

might be a typical situation until such times as standards to

allow better integration to emerge.

Structural Integrity Management While increasing complexity of systems and growth of

supporting information may drive the adoption of the Digital

Twin the opportunity to integrate the management of structural

quality is also being considered. Structural Condition

Monitoring is achieved primarily through survey with

descriptive information captured using notes and diagrams, with

more specific details captured using cameras. Quantitative

information is captured using electronic thickness measurement

techniques. Presently this information is communicated using

proprietary methods that have not progressed significantly

beyond paper techniques. Some Classification Societies have

developed their own tools to manage the life cycle of structural

components providing them as a service to operators. There is,

however, no accepted standard for storing and maintaining this

information which makes it difficult to transfer data between

systems or between Classes when a ship is transferred to another

administration. The Common Structural Rules (CSR)

introduces a greater need to capture design time information

such as minimum thicknesses and the environmental conditions

on each side of structural elements. Such design information is

readily available in the 3D Hull Steel Product Model used to

build the ship but yards will rarely release this information

because it contains too much detail on design solutions and

working practice, i.e. their Intellectual Property.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 17

Figure 11, Digital Twins of the Structural Hull Steel using the OpenHCM data model. The same vessel data is

shown in both DNVGL’s Posidon system (left) and Bureau Verita’s Veristar (right).

Hull Structure XML Standards such as that developed by the

OpenHCM Consortium, (Renard, 2009) aims to address this

challenge by representing hull structure using simplistic

representation either 3D linear segments or polyline based data

structures, which capture less detail compared with the original

Product Model. Alongside the 3D model, survey campaigns

which include notes, thickness measurements and images are

included with a reference to structural elements concerned. The

Classification Societies involved in the consortium have

included interfaces to this file format so that they can exchange

information held in their proprietary tool sets, Figure 11.

While the file format developed by the OpenHCM initiative

addresses the data exchange and retention of hull structure life-

cycle information through the creation of a Digital Twin dataset

there are more significant challenges when it comes to

populating data from survey campaigns, particularly thickness

measurements. Since accessing ship spaces can be hazardous,

low tech solutions are presently used to capture individual

measurements. This means that, today, associating these

measurements with a 3D model is additional effort and is not

routinely done. Alternative methods of structural survey are

being developed using Robots to crawl, fly or swim around the

vessel to perform inspections without placing humans directly in

hazardous environments. These devices may be able to use the

3D model directly to navigate around, populate images and take

thickness measurements automatically. Today these specific

solutions are still in the early phases of development but since

ship’s crews are already innovating in the inspection process

using cheaper consumer robots like drones it’s very likely that

these devices will be soon used routinely, using a Digital Twin

dataset as a reference.

Learning with the Digital Twin A final application of the Digital Twin that will emerge is in the

familiarisation and training of ships crews and anyone else that

needs to interact with these facilities. Using the 3D Models

associated with a Digital Twin, learning experiences can be

devised which educate the trainee about layout, procedural and

technical information associated with operating and living on

board. Gamification of technical tools and information coupled

with the ability to deploy this across a wider range of devices

means that more engaging learning material can be created by

simulating the environment in which the knowledge should be

used. The Digital Twin can also be centred at the heart of the

learning process as a portal where knowledge can be obtained,

onboard or ashore if accessible. This approach should not

necessarily be a replacement for traditional training but

complimentary as part of a Blending Learning process, a

combination of tutor lead and eLearning. The ability to deploy

electronic learning platforms to personal devices means that

trainees can access materials and proceed at their own pace even

before the tutor led programme begins. This approach makes

more efficient use of class room time as the tutor can focus on

consolidating knowledge, answering advanced questions and

test trainee understanding.

Figure 12, The AVEVA AVP Immersive Training Simulation platform illustrating planning for routine procedure (left) or unforeseen incidents (right).

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 18

Familiarisation

For crews joining large complex vessels the 3D model may be

used in a game style environment as part of familiarisation

training. While this may not be necessary for experience crew

joining typical cargo vessels, ships such as aircraft carriers and

cruise liners where junior inexperience members may find

difficulty in locating specific points in the arrangement or for

training basic safety information such as evacuation routes and

responsibilities. This kind of simulation is an easy repurpose of

many 3D Visualisation tools. Game technology may be used to

bring this kind of experience to personal or mobile devices.

This information may need to be treated with care in respect of

security and this may mean that this experience may only be

available on company premises or onboard. This style of

experience could be used to provide access to more specific

training stored in the Digital Twin.

Figure 13, Bringing the Digital Twin inside immersive training simulation with an interactive view of

NET Portal which can be access to obtain more information while preforming an operation.

Training and eLearning

The Digital Twin is an excellent platform to deploy and support

modern eLearning content. Unlike traditional tutor or text based

training material, eLearning aims to be more engaging by using

a greater range of media content. A Digital Twin may host an

eLearning platform and it may be used as a source of

information inside an eLearning course. Standard eLearning

courses typically do not have a lot of depth which makes them

good for mandatory training of basic operating procedures and

standing instructions.

Detailed training activities may involve simulating the

movement around the ship, identifying specific equipment or

service locations and following correct processes to

decommission, service and reinstate systems. Virtual reality

and games style interfaces allow fully immersive experience

where trainees can interact with equipment, tools, the

environment and systems but these platforms are expensive to

develop and may only be cost effective for the largest of

organisations. Software tools like AVEVA’s AVP take a more

pragmatic approach reusing the 3D Model from the Digital

Twin in a desktop environment where trainees can perform

complex procedures individually or team up with other trainees

inside the same scenario watched over by instructors or

moderators. Within this software trainees can access the Digital

Twin through an Internet Browser style interface embedded in

the 3D model, Figure 13, simulating having that system

available to you if further information was needed during the

real scenario. It should be kept in mind that while immersive

simulations can be a great experience, for training to be

effective it must be complimented by testing capability to verify

whether trainees have understood the information they are

supposed to have learnt and can apply it without external

assistance, something which AVP supports. Tracking that

trainees have successfully completed training exercises is

important and is again something that could be stored within the

Digital Twin.

Bole Taking Control of the Digital Twin 19

SUMMARY The amount of information authored during design, fabrication and operation of ships and other engineering facilities increases as

constituent systems become complex. The need to reduce costs and improve efficiency and environmental impact will result in more

levels of integration and system autonomy. Information describing these systems needs to be retained and qualified as it will be needed

during maintenance and breakdown. Digital Twins capture this information but more importantly allow it to be accessed, cross

referenced and understood by exploiting common concepts and contexts within the data.

The Marine industry lags behind others in addressing the need to capture documents and data during handover from the shipyard and

maintain this information throughout the life of a vessel. The Oil & Gas industry has within the last decade formalised this need, which

has led to the emergence of Information Management roles these projects. However, research suggests that information capture is still

challenging to complete successfully even when specified contractually.

Since Engineering projects rely on data to operate safely and efficiently there remains a need to improve management of information.

This requires effort on all sides to understand what and how we should be addressing this challenge. For over a decade AVEVA has

produced Digital Twin solutions for a variety of scenarios and worked with our customers to understand how they want to access and

manage their information, and how they want to exploit it in innovative ways. This experience puts us in a position to enlighten

industry and demonstrate how you can take control of your information.

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(http://newatlas.com/autonomous-electric-shipping-container-vessel/49477/)

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