Ockham’s Digital Twin

Industrial digital twins are a powerful approach to better project planning, execution, and maintenance through virtual representations of physical assets.

Ockham’s principle, also known as the principle of parsimony or Ockam’s razor, is the idea that the simplest explanation or solution is usually the best.

It is attributed to William of Ockham, a 14th-century English philosopher and theologian.

"Plurality is not to be posited without necessity" (Wikipedia)

“Plurality is not to be posited without necessity” (Wikipedia)

Limitations of Digital Twins

Digital twin technology, when applied to the continuous process industry, are often faced with limitations such as complexity in data management, difficulty in keeping the digital twin up to date with its physical counterpart, as well as high costs and long lead times associated with implementation.

However, Ockham’s principle can be used to address these limitations by simplifying the input dataset needed, minimizing architecture design, reducing implementation costs, and enabling continuous update of the twin by empowered field workers and engineers.

 Another bad day with a digital twin (Wikipedia)

Another bad day with a digital twin (Wikipedia)

Benefits of Ockham’s Principle

When applying Ockham’s principle to digital twins, minimal input data such as 3D from reality capture and 2D from Piping & Instrumentation Diagrams can be used to represent the as-built (real) and as-documented (assumed) states of facilities and networks.

Linking these two representations at equipment level can be used to identify discrepancies, while facilitating work between field personnel and engineers. The unique tag identifier of each equipment allows for querying existing systems of records from 3D or P&ID, without the need for heavy migration.

Furthermore, minimal input data allows for an easier continuous update, which is crucial for the safety and reliability of facilities and networks in the continuous process industry.

digital twin technology

William of Ockham depicted on a stained glass window at a church in Surrey (Wikipedia)

Bottom Line

Applying Ockham’s principle to digital twins is what Samp does. The team’s unique industrial and scientific expertise means that the burden of dealing with sparse and imperfect input data lies with the AI, not with the users, who can exploit their existing technical data.

Industries such as water, natural gas, and district heating should consider applying Ockham’s principle to their digital twin implementations to reduce risk, ensure adoption, and achieve faster, actionable results faster when upgrading or maintaining aging industrial plants or networks.

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Samp web solution in action. Under a week at your site!

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More on Ockham: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/

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In this webinar, we’ll showcase how #SharedReality allows you to clean-up your existing data in a visual way. 🧹️

Whether your technical data is incomplete or outdated, you will discover how to use the power of visually verifying its consistency and completeness by easily linking, filtering, or colorizing it with 3D reality capture.

This approach fosters a continuous improvement cycle that keeps your teams engaged and empowered, no matter their discipline or seniority level. 👷👨‍💼

Join us to discover why STARTING your data quality projects with Shared Reality enhances record cleansing and boosts performance, seamlessly integrating with your existing data systems.

Register now and accelerate your continuous improvement initiative, while making operational excellence a closer goal. 🎯

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This video featuring Laurent Bourgouin, CEO & co-founder of Samp, as he joined David Delos on French Tech last Thursday, October 10th. In this episode, Laurent discusses our fundraising initiatives to accelerate commercial growth with the goal of reaching 5,000 industrial sites by 2030.

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Stéphane Evanno

Chief Strategy & Development Officer

What can you expect from a demo with Samp?

Scanning Services

Extend the reach of your scanning services by delivering your scanning campaigns on an AI-powered 3D worspace, designed from the ground up for the industry. Leverage your surveying and topographic expertise to consolidate valuable field data into a single viewer: maps, aerial and drone orthophotos, laser scans, photogrammetry or videogrammetry, and georadar can now be securely viewed, updated and shared in one place.

Engineering services, EPC

Upscale the value of your engineering services offering by delivering digital twin as a service, powered by your qualified staff. Improve customer retention with longer-term contracts that ensure continuous synchronization of technical data with the as-built facility. Accelerate or automate the production of technical deliverables when working on brownfield projects with little or no existing input information.

CONTRACT OPERATORS

When preparing a quote for operating a facility on behalf of the owner, be sure to maximize that short window of time by taking advantage of as much technical information as possible. Turn your initial site visit into a unique opportunity to capture the current condition of the facility. Make a bid that will beat the competition with an already operational digital twin, while giving you increased confidence in your future service contract margins.

OWNER OPERATORS

Whether you manage a single plant or multiple sites, whether your facilities are on-shore or off-shore, we can help you build and maintain a twin within days. Major milestones in a plant’s lifecycle, such as handover from EPC to operator, change of ownership, revamping or decommissioning, provide an opportunity to implement a safer and more efficient way of working with your extended teams, regardless of the quality of your technical data.