Page 27 - RC2020-EDGEMagazine_SummerEdition

For digital twins in CRE, use cases help keep the business

case and extent of integration in perspective. There may be
a technical ambition to model the entire building, but the
business use case sets the boundaries of what systems are
considered integral to the investment.

static features like walls and pumps. These spaces are to remotely control the lighting on behalf of occupants. By
supported with dynamic services like heat and light. aggregating and virtualizing lighting controls the service
Collectively, the spaces describe the building as a whole can be cost-effectively provided across a portfolio. We
and are documented using BIM. need to stop thinking of the building as an aggregated
whole of services and start thinking of buildings as
FAQS ON DIGITAL TWINS aggregations of individual spaces and their services; each
space needing different services delivered dynamically in
Is BIM a digital twin? different ways appropriate to their use case.
Yes. BIM allows much greater accuracy when providing
online documentation for construction and operation A favorite project is Bell’s Lightbox in downtown Toronto.
of a space. REVIT and other modeling techniques take As home to the Toronto International Film Festival, it
this documentation a step further. By mapping building needed to cater to every possible movie format and scale
services, the model becomes increasingly accurate to delivery to allow for multiple (unpredictable) audience
the conditions the occupant is experiencing. The promise sizes. It was built to accommodate both analog and
of virtualization and digital controls is to take this model digital formats. Although an underappreciated technical
to ever finer levels of granularity. Rather than set a marvel (it’s over 10 years old already); it is really a mar-
temperature for a floor, a digital twin potentially allows vel of service delivery for cinema. Each cinema space is
for control at the meeting room level. This capability may dynamically adjusted to on-demand need. The venue is an
be a significant differentiator as new technology services early example of how services can be used to organize a
emerge. At the moment it is simply a framework to digital twin not delivery technology.
implement policy controls on a virtual space (property).
What do I have to get right when building a digital twin?
Can existing sites be digitized cost-effectively? You must have a strategy to ensure naming is consistent
Yes. But sites gain most from integrating their smart across locations and services. One objection at this
systems with the online twin. Both new construction and point is: we already have systems that do everything you
existing properties can be digitized by ensuring building just said. Why do we need to virtualize the building as an
documentation and device naming use consistent naming aggregated whole? The problem is that each of the existing
techniques. But beyond this simplified representation subsystems address space and service using their own
of the building, features and capabilities are provided by terminology and operational techniques. Heat is applied
‘smart’ automation. Digital twins gain their power from to a zone, whereas electricity is measured by circuit and
accurately mapping locations and their services. elevators measured by wait time—and all of these systems
are limited by how the service was originally installed.
The concept of a building as a collection of spaces Managing the space as a whole requires correlating
also allows for space management across properties. services by location, not subsystem.
Virtualization allows the building (space) to be managed
in different aggregations thereby leveraging scarce What is the biggest unresolved issue in the
expertise or economies of scale. One example is transformation?
surveillance camera systems (DVMS) which are often That depends on who is running the Command &
aggregated into multi-building command centers. Another Control–the Twin, the local Operator, or the Occupant.
is the highly desired feature of every call center—an ability In these early days of virtualization, there will be a lot of

25