Table 4.

Revisiting the characteristics of the digital twin of a product and the digital twin of an after-sales service based on the case findings

Similarity/DifferenceCharacteristicDigital twin of a PRODUCTDigital twin of a SERVICE
SimilarityPhysical system (modeled system)Physical system + elements of environment (Parrott and Warshaw, 2017; Pang et al., 2021) for the product enabling value generationSome physical elements +activities and interactions related to the value generation
DifferencePhysical environment/place of consumption (VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021)Inside and outside of the organization, essentially inside the factories and assembly linesFrontline mainly, essentially outside factories and assembly lines long chain (regional logistics hub and country units) with independent distributors
SimilarityVirtual representationData and computational models for the physical objects, environment and processes (Jones et al., 2019; VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021)Data and computational models for the physical objects, environment and processes (Jones et al., 2019; VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021)
SimilarityInformation interconnectionPhysical-to-virtual and virtual-to-physical product connection (VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021)Physical-to-virtual and virtual-to-service-process connection
DifferenceData transferDigital and manual (VanDerHorn and Mahadevan, 2021)Mainly manual, digital requires totally new approach to sensors on the machine and use of, e.g. wearable technologies to gather/transfer data on the operator activities
DifferencePurposeManagement and control of the use of machineManagement, control and development of the service process activities
Source: Authors’ own work

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