What Is 'Digital Twin'?
Marketing materials say a digital twin is a digital representation of a thing or process.
What does that mean in practical terms? What are the practical uses? How is this different from an asset management system? Is it some novel concept or just meaningless marketing hype?
I can answer from the manufacturing side only. In manufacturing, "Digital Twin" refers to having a fully-digital version of your manufacturing line modeled and running on a computer. In most cases this takes the form of a kind of dashboard where you can see on a screen (or screens) exactly what is going on with your physical line at any time. So you have the physical, real-world line on your factory floor and you have its "digital twin" on the computer. This is very useful for real-time monitoring and performance improvement. For example, if an assembly station is starved of parts it needs, rather than having to wait for a line supervisor to go to the station, see what's wrong, then go notify the logistics people, your digital twin would immediately show a red indicator with a reason and action can be taken immediately (or prevented if you've got things setup properly for predictive).