Introducing a Digital Twin through Action Research: challenges and lessons learned

The advent of Industry 4.0 has led to the diffusion of advanced technologies such as the Digital Twin (DT). Adopting a DT may provide organisations with several benefits, including the ability to perform real-time monitoring and offline simulation. However, developing a DT and integrating it with an existing system come with several challenges, and it is not a straightforward process. To this end, scholars have been proposing several approaches and frameworks to facilitate the adoption of DT. Despite these efforts, a literature-practice gap often remains when introducing new technologies in a real industrial context, as seen in other fields. This gap can be due to scholars’ lack of practical experience, leading them to perceive different or less relevant challenges compared to practitioners. Few studies have investigated empirical challenges hindering the adoption of a DT, mainly outside of intralogistics activities. This paper wants to fill this gap by presenting an Action Research (AR) related to the development of a DT for an Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS). The AR proved to be an effective method to introduce a DT in a real industrial context, enabling to transfer the academic knowledge to the organisation and let scholars experience the challenges and issues that must be addressed. The AR revealed that, despite a clearly stated objective, new requirements emerged along the way causing delays. Delays were also caused by lack of information, which the organisation was taken for granted and low compatibility data formats coming from different IT systems. This study and its outcomes can be exploited by scholars and industrial organisations that want to adopt a DT.