The findings from this study could serve as a basis for a more detailed study around the topic.
More research could be done for example from the perspective of manufacturing companies by diving deeper into their DT solutions or by conducting a broader study with a more abundant sampling, but especially from the view of the end customers. It would be noteworthy to study the end customers’ views and perceptions of the digital twins: how they see its benefits and
possible defects, what kind of features they value the most, what features they would be willing to pay for, where the value produced by the digital twin to its end user is formed, what factors influence a possible purchase decision for a digital twin and so on.
Another very interesting research area would be to explore digital twins from a sustainability and environmental perspective: could digital twin-based solutions help companies to become more environmentally friendly? Could DTs help them to find concrete ways to reduce negative environmental impacts, such as soil contamination or erosion? What kind of environmental systems could be connected to the digital twin? From a sustainability perspective it would be interesting to explore how the digital twin could incorporate the physical product structure and manufacturing history all the way from raw materials through manufacturing to the end customer? In other words, what kind of solutions based on the digital twin could be developed to collect data on the raw materials and their place of collection and development, manufacturing, use and history of a product.
More research could also be done on the actor roles of ecosystem built around the digital twin:
what kind of actors are needed in the ecosystem, what roles do actors have, is there something missing, how to promote or improve the ecosystem and how to encourage actors to participate?
A possible way to conduct such a study could be a real pilot project or a simulation environment.
7 SUMMARY
This thesis discovered the current perceptions of the digital twins, the state of ecosystem thinking and the future prospects of the manufacturing industry with the following four research questions:
What are the effects of digital twins for companies’ current business models and ecosystems?
What are the concrete features for digital twins which companies want or need?
What features and functions should digital twins include to enable service business?
What are the opportunities and challenges of digital twins for manufacturing ecosystem?
The above presented questions and the research objective, which was to explore the potential and impacts of digital twins on business ecosystems, were answered during this research. Both topics, the DTs and ecosystem thinking in manufacturing context are evolving at a rapid pace and receiving increasing interest. But despite this growing interest, the use of the DTs in Finnish manufacturing is still in its infancy, and the industry is not quite ready to operate in ecosystem-like environment. When examining the previously written theory, it became clear that the interest in digital twins and emerging ecosystems has been on the rise over the past 5 - 10 years.
However, the lack of resources, such as expertise and the required technology, have been a hindering the development process.
Due to its limitations, the research focused only on a limited number of manufacturing companies and their experiences of digital twins. The client companies of the manufacturing industry were not interviewed, although some of the interviewed manufacturing companies may have been each other's customers in some business sectors. The thesis also addressed companies’ data needs and the necessary features to promote data-based service business.
Usage data, data for process monitoring and data outside equipment were of particular interest.
Security, scalability and ease of use of the data were seen as important features for the development of service business and the use of digital twins.
During the study, it was found that the manufacturing industry has interest in the service business as well as expansion beyond traditional product-centric manufacturing roles. As a summary, the manufacturing business is changing and its significance as well as the need for proactive measures and new digital technologies are understood inside the companies, as one interviewee stated: "if we don't make that change, someone else will."
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