Digital twin use is increasing across business aviation as operators and owners make the technology part of their five-year roadmap.

New research from Capgemini Research Institute suggests that although business aviation still lags slightly behind aerospace & defence as a whole, at least 65% of corporate jet firms surveyed “have a long-term roadmap for digital twins”. A further 59% said digital twins are considered a strategic part of the overall digital transformation of their organisation. For the aerospace industry at large the figures are 73% and 61% respectively. This is up from 57% and 51% in 2021 when the research was last conducted, Capgemini revealed to Corporate Jet Investor.

Lee Annecchino, global industry lead for Aerospace & Defense at Capgemini, said: “Aerospace businesses are beginning to appreciate that digital twins hold greater value than just creating 3D models of products and solutions. Digital twins’ true potential is being able to accurately simulate every step of creation process from design, manufacturing and through real-world operations and applications. The 3D models that many organisations are using today are just static images, a fully realised digital twin implementation is a movie.”

Overall, the report found that aerospace & defence investment in digital twins has increased 40% in the last financial year, led by a growing confidence in the technology’s ability to drive both top and bottom-line benefits. Key benefits driving this trend, include cost savings, reducing time to market, increasing sales, providing an advanced training environment and improving sustainability. 

“If greater investment in the technology continues, as our research indicates, digital twins will enable automation at every point on the value chain, generating significant cost reductions and driving innovation. Organisations now need to ensure they are set-up to realise the full potential of this transformative technology, with a baseline digital infrastructure and a unified data platform as key foundations,” added Annecchino.

See the full report here.