Mott MacDonald has been appointed by the Centre for Digital Built Britain (CDBB) to develop a skills and capability framework setting out the key roles and skills needed to deliver the National Digital Twin.
The company will work with management consultancy Lane4.
The framework will support CDBB’s vision and ambitions to develop, implement and operate an information management framework (IMF) that will drive and enable creation of a National Digital Twin as an ecosystem of connected digital twins.
While the National Infrastructure Commission has suggested that the National Digital Twin has the potential to unlock £7bn of annual benefits, it is recognised that without sufficiently enabling and empowering the workforce, such potential will be limited. There is “an opportunity now to accelerate this progress, reduce the rate of failure and ensure consistency in approach to digital twin development and adoption to enable the National Digital Twin”.
The project team will draw on Lane4’s knowledge and expertise in skills and capability framework development and combine this with Mott MacDonald’s understanding of the IMF, the National Digital Twin Programme and its existing relationship with CDBB.
The framework will give CDBB and built environment sector organisations greater awareness of what roles and skills are needed to develop and implement the IMF at a national and organisational level, and through competency assessment, a view of the key skills and capability gaps to drive early intervention and inform targeted role-based training plans to increase IMF and digital twin adoption
Darren Russell, chief digital officer at Mott MacDonald, said: “There is a tremendous opportunity for the UK to become a world leader in creation and operation of digital twins and achieve significant economic and social value through establishing a National Digital Twin. To get there, we need to make sure that infrastructure organisations have a digitally and technically capable workforce with the right skills and training to grow and succeed.”
Tom Smith, consulting director at Lane4, said: “CDBB advocates a vision for infrastructure that is people-focused as well as systems-based. Transformation of this nature requires a focus on the roles, skills and capability essential for success. We are excited to support the development, understanding and application of the IMF across the industry, helping to ensure that infrastructure and built environment sector organisations are equipped with a sufficiently capable workforce to establish digital twins.”
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