# Value Creation with Digital Twins: Application-Oriented Conceptual Framework and Case Study
## 6 Discussion
### Contribution
#### 6.2.1 To Practice  
The application-oriented DTF contributes to practice by providing utility for practitioners as an artifact for communication and as a tool for specific challenges in corporate innovation processes regarding systematic value creation with DTs. **For communication--**Apart from technical challenges, the successful implementation of DTs requires a holistic understanding of external value-creating ecosystems, internal value creation with PLM of products and services, and data resource management. The application-oriented DTF enhances an individual's understanding of the relation and context of DT-based innovation by providing a holistic and comprehensive systematization of these interrelationships. The division into dimensions and specifications and the compatibility with the scientific DTF suit it well for designing courses for the education and training of employees and customers. The application-oriented DTF supports practitioners in positioning and structuring their DT activities and communicating them to internal and external stakeholders. It helps break down complex projects and challenges into units that are easier to communicate, understand, and handle. It contributes to creating a shared big-picture, common sense, and language and thus the trust needed to allow experts from various fields to focus on their work efficiently. **As a tool--**Furthermore, the application-oriented DTF can be a helpful tool in every phase of an innovation project. In the early phases, it is suitable to define the level of sophistication of the DT required to create value in the respective use case in the early stages of a project. It can be used, for example, for understanding the needs of the users of the system being created and for conceiving, agreeing, defining, and documenting the processes and design of the system together with them. The application-oriented DTF thus facilitates innovation teams to decide which data their SCP must provide for the DT to fulfill the needs of a particular business process or use case to create intended value. Subsequently, the systematic consideration of the data resource dimension enables one to derive the data required for desired applications or to derive further possible applications from already existing data. The application-oriented DTF also facilitates keeping an overview for the project leader and ensuring that the developed objects behave as planned. Even after the innovation enters the market introduction phase, the instantiation of the framework tailored to the use case is practical, for example, as a basis for pitch and sales decks. If an innovation project or use case is documented with an instantiation of the application-oriented DTF, it enables systematic classification and comparison with other use cases. It also simplifies further development at a later point in time and ensures long-term consistency, for example, when the next generation is to be developed. The instantiation of the application-oriented DTF for the use case presented also contributes to practice as it illustrates how a traditional product can become a SCP, which, combined with a DT, becomes a product-service system and thus enables services that create value. Moreover, the example from public transportation is familiar to many, which allows the basic systematics and logic of value creation with DTs to be demonstrated understandably. **Closing knowledge gaps--**As stated at the beginning of this paper (cf. Section 1.4), the knowledge gap in practice consists of a lack of tangible understanding of the scale and nature of value creation with DTs. Therefore, companies seek tools to evaluate, compare, and communicate different types of DTs (e.g., level of authenticity), their impact, value creation, and ideal application in their service business model and across the value chain. The application-oriented DTF presented here significantly contributes to closing this knowledge gap in practice.