Understanding Practitioners’ Perspectives on Digital Twin: A Survey

Understanding Practitioners’ Perspectives on Digital Twin: A Survey | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Research Article Understanding Practitioners’ Perspectives on Digital Twin: A Survey Mert Özkaya, Deniz Akdur, Alper Turunc This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-6470441/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Digital twin (DT) has gained an ever-increasing popularity in industry and academia for the real-time monitoring of physical systems for performance improvements. However, it is not easy to understand the practitioners’ thoughts on DTs with regard to industries’ (i) adoption of DTs, (ii) motivations for using DTs, (iii) development experiences on DTs, and (iv) challenges from different perspectives. In order to investigate those questions, we designed and conducted a survey. Our survey received 131 responses from various industries and profiles. We conducted our survey online and systematically performed the principles of survey methodology. In this paper, we present the results of this survey, which led to interesting findings. Some of those are as follows: (i) companies develop their DTs in-house rather than using DT-specific development tools and SaaS companies, (ii) simulation DTs are the most used systems, (iii) the top enabling technologies used in DTs are real-time data analysis and modeling, (iv) practitioners’ top motivations for using DTs are the real-time monitoring & control and cost savings, (v) practitioners use conventional programming technologies for developing DTs rather than DT-specific technologies, (vi) many key challenges have been observed such as the interoperability issues, data uncertainities, delays in real-time communication, security issues for the heterogenous device communications, lack of support for reuse in design and development, immature literature and lack of specialist and expertise. We believe that the survey results will be useful for many stakeholders, who use, develop, manage, and research & teach DTs. Digital twin survey practitioners adoption motivation development challenges Full Text Additional Declarations The authors declare no competing interests. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Posted Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {"props":{"pageProps":{"initialData":{"identity":"rs-6470441","acceptedTermsAndConditions":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"archivedVersions":[],"articleType":"Research Article","associatedPublications":[],"authors":[{"id":444311823,"identity":"8335681c-d966-4454-b392-b01cf301dd8a","order_by":0,"name":"Mert Özkaya","email":"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAABHUlEQVRIiWNgGAWjYHACZhAhB+PwIIvi1WIM18IDF2XDryWxAcYhqEW3vf2xwc82u/T+/sMHmHkqrGXs2XsPPmCosE5skO99gE2L2ZkDyYm9bcm5M26kJTDznEnn4eE5l2zAcCY9sYGN3QCrlhsJhw/wtjHnbpDgMWDmbTvMwyORYybB2HYYqAW7y8xuJDYf/NtWn27Af/4DM+8/oBb5N+Y/GP/h05LMnAw0PMGAIYeBmbcBZAuPGQNjAx4tZ44xG8ucO24I9IvBwTnHgH45k5cskXAs3biNLQ27luPtjyXflFXL8/cffvjgTY21PXv72YMfPtRYy/YzH8OqBQwYoS44BIkTIJnAgC8mQeAPVOsPmJZRMApGwSgYBUgAAC9jWiJIeo8IAAAAAElFTkSuQmCC","orcid":"","institution":"Yeditepe University","correspondingAuthor":true,"prefix":"","firstName":"Mert","middleName":"","lastName":"Özkaya","suffix":""},{"id":444311824,"identity":"c61b18bc-73cb-46da-b09b-6654a3ec8e0a","order_by":1,"name":"Deniz Akdur","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"ASELSAN Inc.","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Deniz","middleName":"","lastName":"Akdur","suffix":""},{"id":444311825,"identity":"ebebdba9-1543-4271-8f5c-9a8bf7db19e9","order_by":2,"name":"Alper Turunc","email":"","orcid":"","institution":"DFDS","correspondingAuthor":false,"prefix":"","firstName":"Alper","middleName":"","lastName":"Turunc","suffix":""}],"badges":[],"createdAt":"2025-04-17 09:49:35","currentVersionCode":1,"declarations":{"humanSubjects":false,"vertebrateSubjects":false,"conflictsOfInterestStatement":false,"humanSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false,"humanSubjectConsent":false,"humanSubjectClinicalTrial":false,"humanSubjectCaseReport":false,"vertebrateSubjectEthicalGuidelines":false},"doi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6470441/v1","doiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6470441/v1","draftVersion":[],"editorialEvents":[],"editorialNote":"","failedWorkflow":false,"files":[{"id":80866582,"identity":"50b1b2be-41e3-4e54-8784-3b8506412717","added_by":"auto","created_at":"2025-04-18 03:41:09","extension":"pdf","order_by":1,"title":"","display":"","copyAsset":false,"role":"manuscript-pdf","size":3149551,"visible":true,"origin":"","legend":"","description":"","filename":"snarticle.pdf","url":"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-6470441/v1_covered_c9ae8a9d-cad7-4867-a7ec-1a966a0bba82.pdf"}],"financialInterests":"The authors declare no competing interests.","formattedTitle":"\u003cp\u003eUnderstanding Practitioners’ Perspectives on Digital Twin: A Survey\u003c/p\u003e","fulltext":[],"fulltextSource":"","fullText":"","funders":[],"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow":false,"hasManuscriptDocX":false,"hasOptedInToPreprint":true,"hasPassedJournalQc":"","hasAnyPriority":true,"hideJournal":true,"highlight":"","institution":"","isAcceptedByJournal":false,"isAuthorSuppliedPdf":true,"isDeskRejected":"","isHiddenFromSearch":false,"isInQc":false,"isInWorkflow":false,"isPdf":true,"isPdfUpToDate":true,"isWithdrawnOrRetracted":false,"journal":{"display":true,"email":"[email protected]","identity":"researchsquare","isNatureJournal":false,"hasQc":true,"allowDirectSubmit":true,"externalIdentity":"","sideBox":"","snPcode":"","submissionUrl":"/submission","title":"Research Square","twitterHandle":"researchsquare","acdcEnabled":true,"dfaEnabled":false,"editorialSystem":"","reportingPortfolio":"","inReviewEnabled":false,"inReviewRevisionsEnabled":true},"keywords":"Digital twin, survey, practitioners, adoption, motivation, development, challenges","lastPublishedDoi":"10.21203/rs.3.rs-6470441/v1","lastPublishedDoiUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-6470441/v1","license":{"name":"CC BY 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"},"manuscriptAbstract":"\u003cp\u003eDigital twin (DT) has gained an ever-increasing popularity in industry and academia for the real-time monitoring of physical systems for performance improvements. 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