Archetypes of Digital Twins

Authors

Hendrik van der Valk, Updated - AISFollow
Hendrik Haße, Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering
Frederik Möller, TU Dortmund University
Boris Otto, TU Dortmund University

Document Type

Research Paper

Abstract

Currently, Digital Twins receive considerable attention from practitioners and in research. A Digital Twin describes a concept that connects physical and virtual objects through a data linkage. However, Digital Twins are highly dependent on their individual use case, which leads to a plethora of Digital Twin configurations. Based on a thorough literature analysis and two interview series with experts from various electrical and mechanical engineering companies, this paper proposes a set of archetypes of Digital Twins for individual use cases. It delimits the Digital Twins from related concepts, e.g., Digital Threads. The paper delivers profound insights into the domain of Digital Twins and, thus, helps the reader to identify the different archetypical patterns.

Recommended Citation

van der Valk, Hendrik; Haße, Hendrik; Möller, Frederik; and Otto, Boris (2022) "Archetypes of Digital Twins," Business & Information Systems Engineering: Vol. 64: Iss. 3, 375-391.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/bise/vol64/iss3/9