Navigating the digital landscape: prioritizing challenges in supply chain management of digital twin implementation

In the fast-moving environment of supply chain management, the application of digital twins represents a further powerful disruptor that will provide real-time insights and permit improved decision-making. Previous research has identified a variety of challenges, but their relative importance remains unknown. The challenge is to investigate the challenges that make integration for a seamless digital twin in supply chain operations smooth, using the Best–Worst Method (BWM) and Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) to systematically prioritize the challenges faced. That ensures a comprehensive view across a broad industry spectrum and operational contexts by drawing on the insights elicited from an appropriate sample of supply chain professionals. The results not only directly identify the most serious problems but bring out a fine-grained understanding of their relative importance. This research supplements the existing literature with a strategic framework that enables organizations to make effective decisions around resource allocation and hence implement informed decisions within digital twins. It underlines, above all, that the challenges faced are dynamic in landscape attention areas. This paper is thus timely and intended to give practitioners and academics practical insights into prioritizing challenges in the implementation of a digital twin. Provided here is a valuable map for an organization desiring to navigate such complexities as it goes ahead towards the integration of a digital twin on its journey of digital transformation in supply chains.