What is an industrial digital twin — and what isn't
Cutting through the marketing: what a useful plant digital twin actually does, and what to ignore.
Almost every industrial vendor sells "a digital twin" today. Most of those slide decks describe a 3D viewer with a couple of dashboards bolted on. That isn't a twin — it's a visualisation.
A real industrial digital twin connects three things: an accurate-enough representation of the asset, a live data stream from the physical world, and a feedback loop that informs decisions.
The three layers that matter
Representation: low-poly 3D, P&IDs, line diagrams — whatever lets a human navigate the asset quickly.
Telemetry: SCADA, OPC-UA, MQTT, CCTV. Without live signals, you have a model, not a twin.
Decision support: alarms, predictions, maintenance triggers, work-order handoff. This is where ROI lives.
Where teams get stuck
Most pilots fail because they over-invest in photoreal 3D and under-invest in integrations. The 3D is the front door, not the product.