Bringing Digital Twin Expertise to Australia, Glodon Presents at Digital Built World Summit

From 22-23, February 2023, over 300 global AEC executives and industry experts from around the world gathered in Sydney and virtually at the Digital Built World Summit 2023 to share their experiences and predictions on how to leverage digital technology to design, build, and operate smart, responsive, and sustainable assets. Glodon, as a leading digital building platform service provider, is proud to be part of the effort to transform the construction industry with technology. 

Being organised with FuturePlace, the summit is Asia-Pacific's premier event on improving digital business outcomes, including strategic innovation, connected assets, sustainable construction, user experience, and optimisation of capital planning for large assets.

"The world deserves better," Cristina Savian, CEO and Founder of BE-WISE, said in the opening remark. "As our world changes rapidly, so does our built environment. We must strive to build smarter, safer, and more sustainable built environments to meet the needs of our growing population while minimising our environmental impact."

This echoes Glodon's mission to apply technology to improve the living and working environment. The summit provides a good chance for the company to demonstrate how its Digital Building Platform service could facilitate digitalisation in the construction industry.

Digital building refers to an industrial strategy that uses BIM, cloud computing, big data, IoT, AI, and other information technologies to lead the industrial transformation with advanced lean construction methods.

It brings new changes to the building industry where: the transformation of production method will drive the construction process from physical to digital twin construction, followed by new changes in management and transaction mode as well as the transformation of the business model towards the development of large-scale customisation and service-oriented construction.

This year's summit focuses on digital twins — a hot topic in the construction industry, with an increasing number of companies recognising its immense potential to transform how buildings are designed, built, and operated.

As put by the organiser, "digital twins are no longer a futuristic tool but are fast gaining traction globally as a way to increase collaboration and efficiency when designing & building – improve the performance visibility and operation of buildings and infrastructure assets – connect and managing cities and to drive sustainability outcomes." 

Based on the company's experience, Pierpaolo Franco, Vice President of International Markets Development at Glodon, examined digital twins' current state and future potential across the asset lifecycle, how digital twins will influence the industry in the future, and what their untapped potential in his speech.

The Digital Building Platform is a core engine and new infrastructure that builds a digital base for the industry and establishes an operation logic that maps the virtual and physical world, creating a new form of the industrial digital twin to promote the transformation, he said.

Digital innovators across the sectors are beginning to research the value of digital twins for specific outcomes. Pilot projects are being set up to demonstrate an ROI before expanding the technology. 

Sebastian Tang, International Research and Intelligence Director at Glodon, together with other panellists, discussed how to ensure the twinning investment has value and how to prepare for a digital twin program that supports the ROI of the strategy.

A key point agreed by the panellists was that the digital twin journey has to start with a clear vision or expectation of specific outcomes. Digital twins should be an approach to achieving certain business goals rather than adopting them for the sake of doing it.

ROI is also related to the purpose and use case that determines the fidelity and frequency of data synchronisation. Since the cost of additional sensors and data escalates rapidly, it is worth evaluating the current data owned by the organisation first, as the data density and accuracy may prove already enough to solve the current problem.

Off the stage, visitors to the Glodon booth interacted with experts to learn firsthand how the company's digital solutions could meet their projects' unique needs and help take their construction projects to the next level.

Some other topics discussed at the summit were:

  - Using technology to make better decisions, construct better projects
  - Ensuring analytics programs deliver real commercial value
  - Meeting net zero while balancing the asset management strategy
  - Driving a new digital culture based on data and advanced analytics
  - Effectively using twins for the automation of assets and facilities
  - Procuring technology solutions to help manage net zero targets

If you are interested in more insights, please  get in touch with us.