Digital twin foundation for a 55-storey residential tower in Abu Dhabi

The developer's brief for this 55-storey residential tower included a digital twin requirement. The problem was that digital twin had been included in the brief as an aspiration rather than a defined deliverable — there was no asset data schema, no CDE structure agreed with the FM operator, and no BEP commitment that would survive scrutiny.

We were appointed to establish the digital twin foundation: the information requirements, BEP commitments, and CDE structure that would allow the design and construction team to deliver an FM-ready model at handover.

The first output was a digital twin specification document, agreed with both the developer and the FM operator, that defined the asset data schema — the specific data fields required for each asset class, the format those fields would be delivered in, and the stage at which each data field would be populated.

The specification was then translated into BEP commitments: specific, measurable delivery requirements allocated to named appointment packages, with acceptance criteria that the FM operator could verify at handover.

The CDE was set up with a parallel structure: the coordination structure that supported design and construction, and the FM structure that the operator would inherit at handover. Both structures were live from the moment the CDE was established.