buildingSMART International and the Digital Twin Consortium signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to align activities and joint working groups. This strategic initiative further strengthens the accelerated focus on the topic of digital twins.
Since its formation in 2019, the buildingSMART Digital Twins Working Group (DTWG) has developed a key positioning paper titled, “Enabling an Ecosystem of Digital Twins. The aim of the paper was to find ways of unlocking more value using digital technologies by utilizing the work done by the buildingSMART community. The group will focus on three main sub-groups defined within the positing paper:
- Standards of data models
- Standards for data management and integration
- Data security & privacy
The DTWG comprises industry experts and contributors from the industry, led by Bart Brink, Royal HaskoningDHV. Aligning to Digital Twin Consortium will enable better collaboration across the activities outlined by both groups. Digital Twin Consortium is a global ecosystem of users who are accelerating the digital twin market and demonstrating the value of digital twin technology. Members set de facto technical guidelines and taxonomies, publish reference frameworks, develop requirements for new standards and share use cases to maximize the benefits of digital twins.
This MoU will enable better collaboration of technical resources. This includes ensuring data structures and common schema are developed in coordination, such as different approaches used to describe digital twins and buildingSMART’s core underlying IFC data structure. Richard Petrie, Chief Executive, buildingSMART International said, “Digital Twins are very much part of our vision and strategy, and I’m delighted we are able to sign this agreement with Digital Twin Consortium. Together with our Digital Twins Working Group, I am confident all resources will help to deliver a bigger and stronger ecosystem for enabling digital twins for all phases of the built asset industry.”
As an open, neutral, and not-for-profit, buildingSMART International aims to enhance industry participation and improvements to the flow of digital data. “We are keen to see the broadest possible uptake of our open standards and see working with Digital Twin Consortium as a great opportunity to accelerate this,”, said Mr. Petrie.
“Digital Twin Consortium is working to enhance the portability and interoperability of digital twins which will advance the use of digital twin technology in various industries,” said Dan Isaacs, VP and Technical Director, Digital Twin Consortium. “buildingSMART’s knowledge and experience with open standards/solutions for infrastructure and buildings will be valuable as we collaborate on digital twin technology.”
Download: Enabling an Ecosystem of Digital Twins
About buildingSMART International
buildingSMART International is a vendor-neutral and not for profit body that leads the development of open digital information flows across the built asset industry. Its mission is to proactively support industry participants who want to develop open standards for planning, design, procurement, assembly and operation of buildings and infrastructure worldwide. It provides the international network plus the necessary technical and process support. Its members, who range from across the built environment spectrum, collaborate under the buildingSMART organization. buildingSMART is engaged with other international standards bodies such as ISO, the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC). Its core Industry Foundation Class (IFC) standards achieved ISO approval in 2012.
