Digital twins and digital threads can play a crucial role in enabling the end-to-end and bipartite sustainability principles of circular systems engineering:
End-to-End Sustainability: Digital twins provide a virtual representation of physical systems, allowing for real-time monitoring, analysis, and optimization of sustainability performance throughout the entire lifecycle of a system. By leveraging digital twins, organizations can track sustainability metrics, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions to enhance sustainability.
Bipartite Sustainability: Digital threads facilitate the seamless flow of information and data across different stages of the systems engineering process. By integrating sustainability considerations into digital threads, organizations can ensure that sustainability goals are embedded in the design, development, operation, and maintenance of systems. This holistic approach enables the sustainability of both the engineered system and the engineering methods used.
Data-Driven Decision Making: Digital twins and digital threads provide a wealth of data that can be analyzed to optimize sustainability performance. By leveraging advanced analytics and AI algorithms, organizations can identify sustainability trade-offs, simulate different scenarios, and make informed decisions to achieve both end-to-end and bipartite sustainability goals.
Continuous Monitoring and Improvement: Digital twins enable continuous monitoring of sustainability performance, allowing organizations to track progress, identify deviations from sustainability targets, and implement corrective actions in real-time. This iterative approach to sustainability management ensures that systems and methods are continuously improved to align with circular systems engineering principles.
By harnessing the power of digital twins and digital threads, organizations can enhance their sustainability efforts, drive innovation, and achieve long-term environmental, social, and economic benefits in line with circular systems engineering principles.