Digital Twins of Business Processes: A Research Manifesto

Digital Twins of Business Processes: A Research Manifesto. Fornari, F., Compagnucci, I., Callisto De Donato, M., Bertrand, Y., Beyel, H. H., Carrión, E., Franceschetti, M., Groher, W., Grüger, J., Kilic, E., Koschmider, A., Leotta, F., Li, C., Lugaresi, G., Malburg, L., Mangler, J., Mecella, M., Pastor, O., Riss, U., Seiger, R., Serral, E., Torres, V., & Valderas, P. Internet of Things, 30:101477, 2025.

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Modern organizations necessitate continuous business processes improvement to maintain efficiency, adaptability, and competitiveness. In the last few years, the Internet of Things, via the deployment of sensors and actuators, has heavily been adopted in organizational and industrial settings to monitor and automatize physical processes influencing and enhancing how people and organizations work. Such advancements are now pushed forward by the rise of the Digital Twin paradigm applied to organizational processes. Advanced ways of managing and maintaining business processes come within reach as there is a Digital Twin of a business process - a virtual replica with real-time capabilities of a real process occurring in an organization. Combining business process models with real-time data and simulation capabilities promises to provide a new way to guide day-to-day organization activities. However, integrating Digital Twins and business processes is a non-trivial task, presenting numerous challenges and ambiguities. This manifesto paper aims to contribute to the current state of the art by clarifying the relationship between business processes and Digital Twins, identifying ongoing research and open challenges, thereby shedding light on and driving future exploration of this innovative interplay.

@article{FORNARI2025101477,
title = {{Digital Twins of Business Processes: A Research Manifesto}},
journal = {Internet of Things},
volume = {30},
pages = {101477},
year = {2025},
issn = {2542-6605},
doi = {https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iot.2024.101477},
url={https://www.wi2.uni-trier.de/shared/publications/Fornari2025DigitalTwinsOfBP.pdf},
author = {Fabrizio Fornari and Ivan Compagnucci and Massimo {Callisto De Donato} and Yannis Bertrand and Harry H. Beyel and Emilio Carrión and Marco Franceschetti and Wolfgang Groher and Joscha Grüger and Emre Kilic and Agnes Koschmider and Francesco Leotta and Chiao-Yun Li and Giovani Lugaresi and Lukas Malburg and Juergen Mangler and Massimo Mecella and Oscar Pastor and Uwe Riss and Ronny Seiger and Estefania Serral and Victoria Torres and Pedro Valderas},
keywords = {Digital Twin, Business process, Internet of Things},
abstract = {Modern organizations necessitate continuous business processes improvement to maintain efficiency, adaptability, and competitiveness. In the last few years, the Internet of Things, via the deployment of sensors and actuators, has heavily been adopted in organizational and industrial settings to monitor and automatize physical processes influencing and enhancing how people and organizations work. Such advancements are now pushed forward by the rise of the Digital Twin paradigm applied to organizational processes. Advanced ways of managing and maintaining business processes come within reach as there is a Digital Twin of a business process - a virtual replica with real-time capabilities of a real process occurring in an organization. Combining business process models with real-time data and simulation capabilities promises to provide a new way to guide day-to-day organization activities. However, integrating Digital Twins and business processes is a non-trivial task, presenting numerous challenges and ambiguities. This manifesto paper aims to contribute to the current state of the art by clarifying the relationship between business processes and Digital Twins, identifying ongoing research and open challenges, thereby shedding light on and driving future exploration of this innovative interplay.}
}

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