  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).
