An integrated and optimized supply chain and logistic process requires modern, resource and information simulation driven visualized approaches. Those simulated and digitalize strategies accelerate resources, information and many rapidly in the supply chain process. Digital technology also changes the existing business process and creates new business opportunities. Furthermore this strategy tackles the problem in related to demand and supply uncertainty, logistics constraints, delivery delay, higher complexity of new products, unstable world and technological change needs for emphasis for single companies moving the competition in supply chain networks (Zamboni, 2011). The biggest benefits that supply chains can take from digitizing their processes are speed and cost(Intensity, 2020). As a result manufacturing firm are stresses companies to find new innovative methods to gain competitive advantages and increasing their performances (Westphal, 2016). Innovative and digital strategies provide to improve supply chain delivery process of products and services to their customers. According to (Intensity, 2020) , (A.Addae-Korankye, 2013) shows that digital twin is a digital replica of a living or non-living physical entity. Digital twin refers to a digital replica of potential and actual physical assets, processes, people, places, systems and devices that can be used for various purposes. Many digital enterprise suites have to offer an integrated portfolio of software-based systems and automation technologies for industries to seamlessly integrate and digitalize the entire value chain, including suppliers(Kuehn, 2018). Through a digital twin concept, digital representation and a virtual copy of the supply chain can be crated(Marmolejo & Hurtado, 2020). As a result today, the engineering, manufacturing, energy, and automotive industries are leading the way in leveraging digital twins to manage their most critical assets, followed by healthcare, the public sector, and even consumer retail. Whereas digitalization and innovation practice of developing countries are infant and non-integrated technological capability and digitalization practices(Damtew, Borena, & Yilma, 2021),(Dametew & Ebinger, 2017). Also the development of digital twin DTs is still hampered by a number of factors, such as a lack of full understanding of the concept of DTs and problems with DT strategies in the automobile and related manufacturing industries.
The previous study (Forum, 2013-14) shows that low income countries including Ethiopia, companies and business process are considered as low performance and lower competitiveness. Innovation and technological advancement that leverages distinctive competencies in the firm. Firms develop their capabilities to use innovative supply chains to knock innovations that sustain their competitive environments. Moreover nowadays, digital supply chain integration, and digital twin’s strategies has become the most important source of economic growth and firm performance(Marmolejo & Hurtado, 2020). However Ethiopian manufacturing industry performances are characterized by lowest level of industrialization and digital capability(Dametew & Ebinger, 2017). Mainly the core manufacturing sectors, such as steel, automotive and metal industries, are least developed in many aspects such as, resource optimization, logistics process, technology adoption, production volume, product quality, supply chain visibility(Dametew & Ebinger, 2017),(Dametewa*, Ebingerb, & Abebec, 2017), (Muzeyin, 2014). Due to poor digital technology the national metal and engineering industries non in electronic design automation (EDA), product lifecycle management (PLM), product data management (PDM), real time operation data and non-integrated physical asset management practices(Wube, Ketaw, & Ebinger, 2019). Outstanding to this Ethiopia steel, metal and engineering industry are weak performance in supply chain process, economic contribution and poor competitive advantages. So far, few articles have discussed roles of digital twins on developed nation companies participate in supply chain management, and the literature on supply chain performances mostly focus on its structure and overall effects. Hence, we have null understanding of digital twin’s role and practice in the supply chain process in developing countries. To tackle the above problems this research was designed.
1.2. Digitalization and Digital Supply Chain Twins
According to (Damtew et al., 2021) study shows that digitalization is a tool for renewal, simplification and improvement that must be incorporated into our approach to principle, strategies and development policy. While Innovation capitalists create market-ready concepts by building on and transforming raw ideas that are sold to customer companies in order to be industrialized and commercialized. An effective relationship, client companies should provide innovation Capitalists with direction and guidance about their product gaps, innovation priorities, and business goals by sharing information based on a trusted and long-term relationship. According to (Sidek, 2013) argue that innovation is one of the most important competitive weapons and generally it seen as a firm’s core value capability. (Rhey, 2008) also explore that innovation within supply chains pertains to how firms leverage suppliers to develop more effective ways to serve either existing or new markets, whether by harnessing existing knowledge or by creating new knowledge. Thus the application and adaptation of digital technologies including internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, big data analytics (BDA),digital twins, automation and robotics are the main technologies and solutions which have accelerated digital transformation in a business environments (Damtew et al., 2021),(Kuehn, 2018).
Besides,digital supply chain twins, in different study (Marmolejo & Hurtado, 2020) defined as a digital twin could be a digital representation of a real-world entity or system. Digital twins are virtual replicas of physical assets and, although there are many applications for the technology, twins share a typical implementation pattern (Intensity, 2020). Twins are built using software package (CAD), bill of materials, simulation models, IoT sensors, time-series data, maintenance records, and the other data a manufacturer wishes to bring together(Gerlach, Zarnitz, Nitsche, & Straube, 2021). The information is then managed, unified, and modeled to make a high-fidelity digital representation of the physical reality. In line with (Gerlach et al., 2021),(X. Zhang & Aramyan, 2009) shows that the digital supply chain twin could be a digital representation of the physical (often multi enterprise) supply chain. It’s a dynamic, real-time and time-phased representation of the varied associations between the info objects that ultimately form up how the physical supply chain operates. It’s the idea for local and end-to-end deciding for the provision chain that ensures that this higher cognitive process is aligned horizontally and vertically throughout the provision chain. The digital supply chain twin comes from all the relevant data across the availability chain and its operating environment. Furthermore (Framework, 2019) shows that a digital twin is that the combination of a computational model and a real-world system, designed to observe, control and optimize its functionality. The revised relevant studies, we find that most of them discuss the definition and progress of digitalization on the current business process (Gerlach et al., 2021), (Damtew et al., 2021),(Kuehn, 2018). However, few scholars (Gerlach et al., 2021),(X. Zhang & Aramyan, 2009) have conducted detailed researches on the roles of digital twins in a supply chain process., in the studies especially concentrating on the supply chain integration performances from the perspective of real-time and time-phased representation and visual representation physical assist of the supply chain process. Although supply chain integrations share some common features with traditional firms, they differ significantly in their objectives, governance and composition and these make co-operatives’ participation(Chen & Huang, 2020) in supply chain become a gap in the literature. The supply chain digital twins have been highly impact and control on supply chain optimization focuses on the improvement of the operative production and logistic control, such as scheduling and routing of orders, and technical control strategies(Kuehn, 2018). But these optimization levels on the supply chain process are not properly quantified and studied in the previous literatures. Some studies(Kuehn, 2018), concentrated a particular issue digital twins as a potential solution, digital twins are expected to promote this development by integrating them with dynamic information(Chen & Huang, 2020) and supply chain optimization process.
However the digital twin impacts on supply chain performance interims of resource utilization, real-time data processing, flexibility, supply chain decision and risk issue in a supply chain process are needs further investigation and studies.
Besides, since the latest metal industry digital twin supply chain integration and co-operations have just entered the promotion stage in developing nation including Ethiopia, the empirical research on them is still null. Thus, this study attempts to bridge the gap by analyzing the roles of digital twin on supply chain performance to integrate steel and metal industries in a supply chain process and proposing a general collaboration framework that involves of all. The supply chain segments including the supplier, manufacturer, distributor, retailor and the customer’s related partners Integration and collaboration have been studied and investigated. The digital twin impacts on supply chain performances in resource utilization, supply chain visibility, risk, financial performance, decision making, real-time data processing, and supply chain flexibility have been studied and quantified.
1.3. Research Objectives
The main objective of this study is to investigate the impacts of digital twin’s on supply chain performance in general material utilization automotive and body manufacturer industry in particular. Mainly the study investigate their roles of digital twins for supply chain performances in visibility and visualization, innovation in supply chain process, real-time data processing, supply chain optimization, digital skill and digital market performance in global manufacturing industries in general developing nation metal and engineering industries in particular.. Risk management performance in digital twin supply chain process also studied and investigated.