Digital Twins
The idea of a digital twin originated at NASA in the 1960s as a “living model” of the Apollo program. When Apollo 13 experienced an oxygen tank explosion, NASA utilized multiple simulators and extended a physical model of the spacecraft to include digital simulations, creating a digital twin. This twin was used to analyze the events leading up to the accident and investigate ideas for a solution. The term “digital twin” was coined by NASA engineer John Vickers much later. While the term is commonly associated with modeling physical objects, it is also employed to represent organizational processes. Here, we consider digital twins of physical entities only.