Digital Twins for Effective Facility Management.pdf

Digital twins are changing how facilities are being managed by creating virtual replicas of physical spaces. These virtual models integrate data from various sources, including IoT sensors, building information models (BIM), and maintenance records, to provide a comprehensive understanding of a facility.

By simulating real-world conditions and analyzing data patterns, facility managers can optimize operations, predict maintenance needs, and identify energy efficiency opportunities.

Beyond operational efficiency, digital twins enhance decision-making. They enable data-driven insights into space utilization, occupant comfort, and asset performance. For instance, by analyzing occupancy patterns, facility managers can optimize space allocation and energy consumption.

Moreover, predictive maintenance capabilities minimize downtime and reduce maintenance costs. As technology advances, digital twins are poised to become indispensable tools for creating intelligent, sustainable, and occupant-centric facilities.

1. DIGITAL TWINS
FOR EFFECTIVE
FACILITY
MANAGEMENT
By bringing real-time data into decision-
making, digital twins help facility managers
better manage facilities

2. WHAT IS A DIGITAL TWIN?
A digital twin is a virtual replica of a physical asset (such
as a building) powered in real time from on-site sensors,
cameras, and various business systems.
Digital twin technology helps bring together
compartmentalized data sets and systems to perform
real-time facility monitoring, analysis, and optimizations.
While most construction costs are
rather predictable, ongoing
operations and maintenance costs
are anything but. These costs
fluctuate a lot based on occupancy
rates, seasonality, and operating
practices.
Yet, pulling all relevant data points
to get the big picture hasn’t always
been easy.

3. On the
analytics side, a
digital twin
facility enables
managers to
conduct more
precise
evaluations,
simulate future
use, and
implement
predictive
maintenance
scenarios.

4. 6 FACILITY MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES TO BE
SOLVED WITH DIGITAL TWINS
FRAGMENTED
DATA
POOR SYSTEM
INTEROPERABILITY
SOARING
OPERATING
COSTS
SUSTAINABILITY
CONCERNS
SUPPLY CHAIN
ISSUES
LABOR
SHORTAGES

5. 1. FRAGMENTED DATA
A digital twin in facility management helps establish
a virtual connection between different physical and
digital assets, bringing together compartmentalized
data streams into one unified platform for real-time
monitoring and analysis.
For example, a digital twin can include data from:
Asset management software
Computerized maintenance management
systems (CMMS)
Building automation systems (BAS)
On-site cameras
Any number of installed IoT devices

6. Digital Twin
Technology
Concept
Explained

7. 2. POOR INTEROPERABILITY
Digital twin for facility management emerged as an
opportunity for transformation. The technology can
act as an extra connectivity tissue, aggregating and
standardizing data from different sources in a
shared virtual repository.
By design, digital twins are built with more
operability in mind, taking advantage of native
cloud architecture and application programming
interfaces (APIs).
The aggregated data can be used for a variety of
data analytics scenarios. AI and ML models, in turn,
can be used to enable predictive and prescriptive
use cases.

8. 3. SOARING OPERATING COSTS
Digital twins can consolidate all utility data and
understand energy consumption rates under
different occupancy scenarios.
For example, you can automatically switch most
systems to power-saving mode after the last tenant
leaves the workplace or automatically adjust the
temperature in unoccupied rooms.
A digital twin solution helped companies save an
average of 40% on energy costs, 15% on facility
management costs, and 30% on operating costs.

9. Source: CBRE — Facilities Management Cost Trends in 2022

10. 4. SUSTAINABILITY CONCERNS
Digital twin platforms can help capture present-day
data around carbon output, emission scopes from
company-owned assets, or controlled sources of
emissions such as electricity, gas, fuels, and vehicles
to document the starting point.
Digital twin sustainability in facility management
can help locate opportunities for optimizing
resource use, be it reducing energy consumption
through optimized light management scenarios or
reducing waste through the purchase of reusable
supplies.

11. 5. SUPPLY CHAIN ISSUES
Digital twins can help facility managers switch from
reactive to predictive maintenance. By having
better visibility into the age of managed assets,
service history, spare parts counts, and locations,
managers can implement just-in-time procurement
to avoid costly delays and timely servicing.
This way you can not only extend asset life but also
optimize maintenance schedules.

12. 6. LABOR SHORTAGES
Digital twins can help determine the optimal
schedule for dispatching janitorial, repair, and
maintenance teams to ensure timely and effective
services. They can streamline planning and even
dispatch tasks by automatically notifying on-site
employees about urgent new tasks.
And, in outsourcing scenarios, they can
automatically transmit instructions, equipment
information, and operating guides to hired teams
via a connected mobile app.

13. FINAL THOUGHTS
Effective facility management equals
effective data use. Digital twins provide real-
time, high-fidelity, contextual insights on
building performance trends, resulting in less
energy waste, longer asset life, and higher
tenant satisfaction.
From digital twin tenant improvements to
sustainable construction, the technology is
paving its way forward in industries.