Shifting focus of value creation through industrial digital twins—From internal application to ecosystem-level utilization

Tero Rantala, Juhani Ukko, Mina Nasiri and Minna Saunila

Technovation, 2023, vol. 125, issue C

Abstract: Industrial organizations are increasingly using digital twins as the solutions offered by digital twin service providers are rapidly expanding. This study aims to investigate how the value creation mechanism changes when transitioning from an organizational digital twin to an ecosystem-level digital twin that functions as a two-sided or multi-sided platform. The study results are based on the multiple longitudinal case studies conducted in Finland, where data were gathered using various methods and replications across the cases were conducted to investigate the same phenomenon. The study makes the following main contributions: (1) although the focus of value creation through digital twins at the level of machines/production lines highlights a technological approach, value creation is increasingly complemented with a human approach when digital twins are used as factory-level internal platforms. (2) Owing to the well-recognized value creation logic in internal use, industrial organizations are inclined to expand their value creation beyond organizational boundaries and establish two-sided and multi-sided platforms around their digital twins. (3) Forerunner organizations are also looking for opportunities to establish multi-sided platforms around their digital twins even though they are not yet ready to shift their value creation logic from internal to ecosystem-level utilization.

Keywords: Digital twin; Value creation; Value co-creation; Digital servitization; Digital ecosystem; Inter-organizational collaboration; Digital platform; Two-sided platform; Multi-sided platform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0166497223001062
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:techno:v:125:y:2023:i:c:s0166497223001062

DOI: 10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102795

Access Statistics for this article

Technovation is currently edited by Jonathan Linton

More articles in Technovation from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().