‘How can the use of Digital Twins improve our future?

+ADD Strategy are working with lead sponsor Newcastle University and Northumbrian Water to deliver an exploration into potential of 'Digital twins' in the water industry. 

Digital twins offer a cutting-edge approach that allows companies to test out and explore the impact of ideas and changes to a digital replica of physical assets (physical twin).

The exploration is in the form of a design sprint delivered at the IF2018 Innovation Festival at Newcastle Racecourse in July 2018. 

Beyond simulation

Digital twins offer a virtual model of a process, product or service which interact.

Pairing of the virtual and physical worlds allows analysis of data and monitoring of systems to head off problems before they even occur, prevent downtime, develop new opportunities and even plan for the future.

Could utilities use digital twins to ...

• Better manage operations
• Create more responsive customer services
• Reduce and even avoid network failures

….and more

The business cases to explore

The design sprint (held as part of IF2018), will explore three key areas of application. 

Newcastle Universities goal was to  develop a technology adoption roadmap for Northumbrian Water.  As part of the initiative we developed three business cases and create two prototypes live on sprint with teams (including  Siemens, Panasonic, Spearhead interactive  and an extensive expert team from Newcastle University) with organisations wishing to participate.

Operational performance

Applications could include health and safety/ productivity / whole life asset life/ field services/ reduced damage/ wear from excess energy and chemicals

Our focus:

The new process plant investment delivery process - design stage of sites / physical civils.  Delays and errors in planning cost time and money.

Goal:

To explore how to use Digital Twin technology to avoid errors in design, delays in live site development and potential to improve site installation and operationalisation efficiency .

Prototype objective:

Using the East Tanfield Phosphate Removal Plant;  Create a model visualisation and 3D version of the site plan, a single digital twin model - live model - running detail of assets / planned process throughput.               

Demonstrate potential in planning/ operationalisation and operational decision making.

BETTER Customer Service

Applications could include billing, site visits, water efficiency awareness and many other aspects

Our focus: 

Improving customer contact in stop tap repair/ meter replacement.  How can we make the process better for the customer and improve efficiency?

Goal :

To model the process and identify how to enable, better interaction, streamlining  and stress testing new service flows.

Prototype objective:

Create a service model that enables experimentation and real time response to changes in demand. 

Demonstrating potential improvements to performance and savings through modelling process.

managing live challenges

Applications could include Modelling main and stress with scenarios to explore fail events

Our focus:  

How to mitigate risk of events/ how to be better prepared/ create plans for events

Goal: 

To enable better real time decision making and to demonstrate how the event could be better managed or the risk of the event mitigated.   

Prototype objective:

using data from the recent 'Newburn incident' in which a flood affected a large residential area to build the digital twin scenario that demonstrates how failures cascade, and potential for better decision tools. 

Event data will include information regarding the catchment around trunk main burst, flows and pressures, valving, weather and other public data.

Newcastle University are the lead sponsor for this contribution to IF2018.  Their participation in the Innovation Festival reflects the strong relationship and collaboration between the Institute and Northumbrian Water.

The University has a deep interest in the potential of digital technology to transform utilities and broader industry and is currently investing in the

As an example of this commitment, the latest development is a recent partnership between Siemens and Newcastle University to accelerate digitalisation and meet the needs of an increasingly-digitalised society.  The MindSphere Lab follows a range of major collaborations between Siemens and the university including the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration, the SmartGrid Lab, and support for degrees and student experience.

This latest development will form part of Siemens’ MindSphere Innovation Network (MINe), extending the university’s work to harness data from a number of projects across sectors including infrastructure, manufacturing, water and energy.

The University's commitment as the lead sponsor of the Digital Twin sprint represents a commitment to develop a collaborative strategy with Northumbrian Water for development and delivery on a technical roadmap for development and realisation of a portfolio of innovations that are encompassed in the concept of  'digital twin' technology.

This initiative will broaden the interface with the university’s estate and digital research assets. It will concepts that help the University understand Utility drivers and ambition which in turn will improve teaching and research collaborations between academics and Northumbrian Water as a partner, to uncover new opportunities to use digital twins to substantially improve operations and services.

For more information on Newcastle Universities interests in digital innovation for Utilities and broader industry, please contact Fiona.Yip@newcastle.ac.uk