# Digital Twin Providing New Opportunities for Value Co-Creation through Supporting Decision-Making
## 1 Introduction  
The motivation for this paper is to explore how digital twins can provide new opportunities for value co-creation by supporting decision-making. Prior studies [1, 2] have provided insights into the benefits of digital twins that combined both data and simulation approaches, however there remains a gap in our understanding of value creation in such situations. Value propositions predicated on digital twins present new opportunities for the co-creation of value-within systems and currently there is a limited understanding of the details of the value creation process. In this paper, the digital twin is defined as: _\"a dynamic virtual representation of a physical object or system across its lifecycle, using real-time data to enable understanding, learning and reasoning\"_[3]. This paper is based on the assumption that in a business context, value is created when a decision is made and action is taken in a system, and that decision-making requires the transformation of technical data into relevant forms for the decision makers [4]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [5] stated that a digital twin simulation allows the exploration and evaluation of decisions and consequences. [PERSON] et al. [6] state that simulations are a commonly used decision support tool used in many situations within product-service-systems (PSS). Furthermore, in the literature [7; 8; 9], the application of digital twins for decision support is confirmed. Expert systems are another approach to support decision-making [10] and, as with simulations, they provide an approach to formalize knowledge between the actors and integrate it with data from machines [11]. In these examples of decision support systems, control remains with the actors who are making the decisions. Value creation based on decision-making within a system is often dispersed and based on actor-to-actor interactions that can change depending on the particular situation [12; 13]. This makes it complex to use traditional innovation approaches to identify the \"requirements\". System value co-creation also has different meanings in the business strategy, information systems, and service science literature streams and this may create challenges given the backgrounds of developers of solutions enabled on digital twins. A framework for development of innovative value propositions within industrial PSS system has been proposed by [PERSON] et al. [14], while [PERSON] and [PERSON] [15] provided a two-by-two block approach for categorizing new digitally-enabled value propositions. Nevertheless, the approaches taken do not fully address the ecosystem role ambiguities when it comes to value co-creation [16]. On a conceptual basis and within the context of digitalization, combined value co-creation has been described by [PERSON] and [PERSON] [17] and the role of actors by [PERSON] et al. [18]. [PERSON] and [PERSON] [19] described the application of service systems and how they can influence the service experiences provided by solutions or value propositions. Empirically, the managerial gap described here has been demonstrated by [PERSON], [PERSON], and [PERSON] [20], focusing on small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) where there was a limited understanding of how to integrate digital into their service offerings. [PERSON] et al. [14] present this in their empirical study based around the \"theory of the firm\" where they confirm that value creation extends outside a firm's boundaries and that in a PSS setting, there are many different solutions. They provide a conceptual model to help understand the characteristics of solution offerings in digital business models. Both confirm that there remains a gap between the conceptual models and operationalization of the theory and the models to assist value co-creation within the context of digital twin enabled value propositions. Based on this, the research aims to explore how digital twins can provide new opportunities for value co-creation through supporting decision-making.