From the hype to real business by utilizing Digital Twins in industrial services

The Digital Twin (DT) is a well-known concept, which every practitioner notices today in the manufacturing industry. DTs are the digital replication of a physical object, process, or even factory. Many industrial DT implementation examples are available today but commercializing the DT concept is very challenging in practice. This study presents findings from multiple case studies developing sustainable industrial services based on the DT concept. The Service Blueprinting Method was used for identifying the customer view to DT services and for understanding roles within the service ecosystems. It is not clear how data really helps customers using machines, and thus customer value is questionable. DT value is created mainly in the operations and maintenance phases of machine lifecycle. The benefits include improvements in safety, reliability of operations and savings in operative costs. This study presents commercialization opportunities for sellable DT based services and responsibilities needed to consolidate data collection and analytics. Not so many papers are available about DT service development and this study discusses whether DT services are real business or just hype.