The versatility of digital technologies relies on a capacity to represent and subsequently manipulate algorithmically selected physical processes, objects or qualities in a domain. ‘Organizationally real’ digital representations are those that, beyond the mere capacity to, actually get woven into everyday work practices. Empirically, we draw on a four-year case study of offshore oil and gas production. Our case provides a vivid illustration of Internet of Things (IoT) based visualizations and data driven predictions characteristic for efforts of digitally transforming industrial process and manufacturing enterprises. We contribute by identifying and discussing three mechanisms through which digital representations become organizationally real: (i) noise reduction (the strategies and heuristics to filter out signal from noise), (ii) material tethering (grounding the digital representations to a corresponding physical measurement) and (iii) triangulating (in the absence of a direct correspondence, corroborating digital representations relative to other representations).

数字技术的多功能性取决于在领域中表示并随后操纵通过算法选择的物理过程，对象或质量的能力。“组织上真实的”数字表示是超出了实际能力而实际上融入日常工作实践中的那些表示。从经验上讲，我们借鉴了一项为期四年的海上石油和天然气生产案例研究。我们的案例生动地展示了基于物联网（IoT）的可视化效果和数据驱动的预测特性，这些特性旨在为工业流程和制造企业的数字化转型做出努力。我们通过确定和讨论使数字表示成为组织真实的三种机制做出贡献：（i）降低噪音（从噪声中滤除信号的策略和启发式方法）；（ii）系绳连接（将数字表示法固定到相应的物理测量值）；以及（iii）三角剖分（在没有直接对应关系的情况下，证实数字表示法相对于其他表示法的确证） ）。