Press Release

Autodesk, GE Digital, and Northrop Grumman join Ansys, Lendlease, and Microsoft as founding members

BOSTON, MA – OCTOBER 6, 2020 – The newly formed Digital Twin Consortium® announced that its membership has grown to nearly 150 in four months since its formation. The Consortium also announced that Autodesk, GE Digital, and Northrop Grumman Corporation are now founding members, joining founders Ansys, Dell Technologies, Lendlease, and Microsoft as well as Executive Director, Dr. Richard Soley and President Bill Hoffman on the Consortium’s Steering Committee.

“Our ecosystem of experts is working feverishly to reduce the risk of implementing digital twin technology – improving interoperability, developing best practices, and influencing requirements for digital twin standards. Today’s announcement shows the importance of digital twin technology to the market; Digital Twin Consortium is the fastest-growing consortium to date,” said Bill Ruh, CEO Lendlease Digital and Chair of the Digital Twin Consortium Steering Committee.

“The value of a digital twin cannot be overstated because of its ability to connect the physical and digital worlds providing real-time operational awareness of structures, machines, or products,” said Nicolas Mangon, Autodesk Vice President for AEC Business Strategy. “As the recognized leader in advanced intelligent 3D modeling, which serves as a foundational component of a digital twin, Autodesk’s participation in the Digital Twin Consortium is motivated by our tradition of openness and working with our peers to advance the industries we serve.”

“With a footprint in 100 countries, GE Digital comprises several software businesses serving the Power Generation, Oil & Gas, Aviation, Electric & Telecommunications Utilities, and the Manufacturing sector,” said Colin Parris, Senior Vice President and Chief Technical Officer for GE Digital and a board member for the Digital Twin Consortium. “The Digital Twins market category is growing quickly. Bodies like the Digital Twin Consortium will play an important role in driving new standards and lowering barriers of entry for industrial companies to accelerate the commercial adoption of digital twins to accelerate business transformation.”

“The consortium will help to better enable cross-industry collaboration while providing a forum to respond to the challenges we all face with digital twin technologies. Creating common standards and practices for digital twins will better enable our ability to deliver products and services more efficiently and more affordably to our customers,” said Silvia Bouchard, corporate director programs, quality, and engineering, Northrop Grumman.

Since its launch on May 18, 2020, the Digital Twin Consortium ecosystem of companies is driving the adoption of digital twins in six core working groups focused on technology and terminology and four industry sectors. Tiger teams are working to accelerate projects like taxonomy types, platform stacks, security and trustworthiness, and the development of uses cases within the key industry sectors of aerospace and defense, infrastructure, natural resources, and manufacturing. Digital Twin Consortium will help enhance the portability and interoperability of digital twins which, in turn, will advance the use of digital twin technology across industries.

“Today, there are no standards, definitions or common language for digital twin technology and therefore it’s been very difficult for companies to integrate it across their product lifecycle and legacy systems,” said Dick Slansky, Senior Analyst, PLM & Engineering Design Tools, ARC Advisory Group. “However, the definition of digital twin is often insufficient to provide a meaningful basis for discussion – especially when comparing digital twin technologies across applications and industries. With so many companies trying to integrate different digital twin technologies, guidance from Digital Twin Consortium comes at a great time.”

Public webinars to demonstrate the priorities for the Digital Twin Consortium begin in September.

Digital Twin Consortium is open to any business, organization, or entity with an interest in digital twins. Its members are committed to using digital twins throughout their operations and supply chains and capturing best practices and standards requirements for themselves and their clients. Membership fees are based on annual revenue.

About Digital Twin Consortium
Digital Twin Consortium is The Authority in Digital Twin. It coalesces industry, government, and academia to drive consistency in vocabulary, architecture, security, and interoperability of digital twin technology. It advances the use of digital twin technology in many industries from aerospace to natural resources. Digital Twin Consortium is a program of Object Management Group.

Note to editors: Digital Twin Consortium is a registered trademark of OMG. For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit https://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list.htm. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.