BIM and GIS for AECO Digital Twins

Our industry is changing, and the way we collaborate and deliver must change with it. This change is having disruptive effects on how infrastructure is planned, engineered, and constructed. Digital twins (or virtual representations of the real world, including physical objects, processes, relationships, and behaviors) are promising to be a solution to creating deliverables that provide centralized, purpose-built access to stakeholders along the design and construction supply chain. We are at a time when the distance between building information modeling (BIM) and geographic information system (GIS) is shrinking, and emerging workflows require sharing new system engagement views with more collaborators, including asset owners. Although some customers are seeing the benefit of a digital twin, others wonder how best to modernize their approach to reduce risk, increase transparency in infrastructure asset delivery, and bridge information gaps between project and operator participants.