Evaluating digital twin adoption for sustainable supply chains in pharma: a fuzzy MEREC–TOPSIS approach

The digital twin has attracted industry attention for its potential to drive disruptive growth and enable sustainable supply chain development. This study proposes a novel evaluation framework to assess the progress of pharmaceutical companies in adopting the digital twin for sustainable supply chains. First, Digital twin adoption indicators were identified through a literature review and validated by fifteen experts using Lawshe’s content validity ratio method. Next, an integrated MEREC–TOPSIS approach under spherical fuzzy sets was employed to determine the objective weights of the indicators and rank the performance of four pharmaceutical companies. The results highlight that “network, collaboration, and trust” is the most critical indicator of digital twin adoption, followed by cost. Comparative and sensitivity analyses confirmed the robustness of the proposed framework. This study contributes a practical and reliable decision-support tool for managers and policymakers to guide DT adoption strategies and enhance the sustainability of pharmaceutical supply chains.