1. In practice, Digital Twin technology is often assigned to control of physical devices and the Internet of Things.

While business processes, as well as whole companies, logically lend themselves to digitalization according to Digital Twin technology theory, there have been no cases of Digital Twin practical application to management of social organizations noted.

This is not surprising because it is not that none of the categories of enterprise software available on the market is even on track to meet its target; it is not known of any serious attempts at seeking it.

However, such enterprise software, being reliable, packaged and commercially operated in a wide range of sectors, does exist.

This certainly is the IEM System.
 

2. Any well-implemented IEM System creates a digital replica (Digital Twin) which is a

• Comprehensive
• Closed
• one-to-one

projection of a real enterprise in all its substantive and meaningful diversity.

Imagine a mirror your enterprise looks in. Despite this business-mirror reflects only quantitative and objective essentials and processes, it does it with full certainty.

3. Do you remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger in the title role of The Terminator loses his concealing human-like soft tissue and turns into a skeletal metal robot with burning red eyes while keeping his full functionality in place?

IEM- virtualization of a real enterprise separates the wheat from the chaff and reflects only useful value chains also called “business processes”.
 

4. A bathroom mirror reflects your movements instantly (within limits to human perception).

IEM-model parameters change being synchronized with the changes of a real enterprise.

A real mirror reflects you in unprecedented detail limited only to human perception so that you and your reflection become indistinguishable from each other.

The level of detail of an IEM-model (like any other model) is finite by definition.

It is equally appropriate to compare an IEM-model with a smartphone camera. Hardware settings and capacity define how grainy the image you get is. The clearer the image the more data storage space and the faster CPU are required for its processing. 

The level of detail of a digital twin within an IEM-model depends on business requirements and its commitment to investing in the refinement of its IEM-model and keeping it up to date.
 

5. A practical example: the way the accounting process of the corporate clients’ shipping documents receipt and recording is reflected. Cargo deliveries from Moscow to Vladivostok are provided by shipping companies as well as the delayed service of sending back documents signed by the clients.

The versions of the process reflection within an IEM-model:

• nothing at all

The movement of documents does not in itself bring in or take any money away. Let your accountants handle it themselves - that is what they are paid to do. Transparency and control are set to zero. 

• Introduce two options for shipping document status using the tick “documents received”: “debt” and “no debt”.

Upon shipment, the “debt” box is not ticked by default. It can be ticked by the accountant upon the receipt of the shipping documents signed by the client.

Now we have data for basic bookkeeping and analytics - overdue accounts and account managers who oversee them, the level of debt, automatic reminders sent requesting prompt clearance and/or informing on the application of fines and penalties.

Yet, the location of the document relating to a particular shipment is still unknown.

• Let us enhance the level of control.

Every page of any consignment note/invoice is provided with a unique system-generated barcode at the time of printing. Every operation related to the document (printing, signing by an authorized person, placing it in a container etc.) is logged by IEM System’s barcode reading technology as well as the time the changes were made and who made them.

The documents are put in an envelope which is an individually marked item of cargo when delivered by a shipping company (or DHL).

IEM System knows with certainty the tracking number of every envelope where any page of the document was put in at each point in time while its integration with the shipping company’s API provides the information on the current location of the envelope.

The accountant, archiving signed documents in a central record office, scans the barcodes of the document as well as the folder, shelf and the rack he places the document in.

Thus a control freak is able to obtain information on the location of any page of any consignment note together with its complete history of changes among tens of millions.

In theory, an increase in the level of detail of an IEM-model is unlimited.
 

6. IEM System as computer software in the strict sense of the term does not manage an enterprise in the precise cybernetic sense.

A physical enterprise and its digital IEM-model together (hence Digital Twins term) comprise a closed two-pillar system where any change of any characteristic of one pillar leads to an immediate change in the other in real time.

Accordingly, any meaningful action in the world of physical assets immediately affects the IEM System and vice versa. Changes in the virtual IEM-model as a result of its own evolution (for example, as a result of the automatic execution of complex business logic) are guaranteed to be replicated in real life otherwise the execution of following business processes is automatically blocked by the IEM System.

This revolutionary and completely new cybernetic approach to business management (even redefining the very meaning of management) is the basis for the outstanding efficiency of IEM Systems in the most sophisticated, dynamic and highly competitive markets.
 

7. What do regular ERP systems offer as an alternative to the digital twin of a physical enterprise provided by IEM Systems?

They do not offer it at all.

Moreover, a typical ERP integrator is unlikely to understand the question.

ERPs are unable to create virtual representations of physical enterprises due to fundamental limitations in their architecture because regular ERPs are not in themselves holistic, coherent and self-consistent systems at all. 

A vendor goes to a damp and picks up some fragments of broken mirrors, beer bottles and windows which are later “integrated” through the application of adhesive tape, saliva and by treading one into the others.

What kind of digital twin can we get?

Exaggeration?

Well, probably not.

This is the key to unlocking the mystery of a remarkably high percentage of failures. 

For implementation itself in ERP paradigm is nothing other than breaking up, tearing, cracking, twisting and distortion of naturally linked business processes of live enterprises.

In accordance with the strict logic of a random collection of «best practices».