Skip to main content
Joe Mariani
Adam Routh, PhD.
Allan V. Cook

Digital twin

A digital twin, as we’ve written elsewhere, is “an evolving digital profile of the historical and current behavior of a physical object or process that helps optimize business performance.”3 It is the exact digital replica of a physical entity, bringing the benefits of digital analysis to the physical world (figure 2).

Digital twin applications include, but are not limited to:

  • Manufacturing—model or simulate physical systems for optimization
  • Aviation—predictive maintenance
  • Health care—optimization of hospital life cycles
  • Urban development—optimization and risk-free testing

  1. Aaron Parrott and Lane Warshaw, Industry 4.0 and the digital twin: Manufacturing meets its match, Deloitte University Press, May 12, 2017.

    View in Article
  2. Tony DeMarinis et al., Real learning in a virtual world: How VR can improve learning and training outcomes, Deloitte Insights, August 14, 2018.

    View in Article

Did you find this useful?

Thanks for your feedback

If you would like to help improve Deloitte.com further, please complete a 3-minute survey