Shipyard digital twin: five questions before you start

"Digital twin" can mean very different things depending on who says it. We have heard it used for a 3D model with four sensors and for a complete copy of a plant with all its data in real time. So before talking about scope or price, in the first meeting we always ask the same five questions.

1. What decision do you want to make with it?

It is the hardest question to answer and the most important one. A digital twin is for making decisions by seeing the data on the model: when to stop a machine, which slipway the next hull goes to, what to show a shipowner visiting the plant, why a piece of equipment is consuming more than last month. If there is no specific decision behind it, the result is a nice-looking model that nobody opens after a month. We ask it this way: what do you want to stop guessing?

2. What 3D model is there?

There is almost always something. The shipyard's or the vessel's CAD usually works: we convert and optimize it so it runs in a browser without losing the details that matter. Whatever does not exist in 3D is modeled from drawings. And not everything has to be modeled, only what the decision in point 1 needs to see. It is one of the things that reduces the budget most.

3. Where does the data come from?

From sensors, from on-board systems, from the maintenance software, from the ERP or from a spreadsheet someone fills in every week. Before installing new sensors, the twin reads the data that already exists. Then you decide what is missing. What each type of sensor measures, from engines to emissions, is explained in our article on sensors in the naval industry. For the twin, the questions are different: who has each piece of data, how often it is updated and what format it is in. This part usually takes longer than the 3D.

4. Who is going to use it, and from where?

An engineer in the office can read a table. A production manager on the slipway, a salesperson in front of a customer or a shipowner at their desk should not have to. The twin shows the data on the model itself: the value next to the equipment that measures it, the alert on the affected area of the hull, a simulation as a video instead of a chart. It opens in the browser, with nothing to install, on a tablet in the plant or on a big screen.

One clarification that avoids misunderstandings: a digital twin shows what has been measured or calculated, but it does not do new calculations. If something has to be simulated again, another program does that, and the twin shows the result.

5. Where do we start?

With something small. One vessel or one building, one data source and one decision. With that, a first version can be ready in weeks, and the rest is decided by seeing it work. Usually that first version changes the list of what was going to be done next, and that is fine.

If you have answers to the five questions, even partial ones, we can prepare a specific proposal. What we do is on the digital twins and digitalization page and, for the sector, on the shipbuilding and maritime page.