Use cases of emerging digital technologies in operations management—exploring purposes and development approaches

Emerging digital technologies (EDTs) promise to transform operations management (OM) practices by offering new ways to analyze, automate, and optimize. However, assessing the opportunity to use EDTs remains challenging due to their ongoing development and yet-to-be-realized practical applications. The existing literature suggests that presenting use cases is crucial for both the adoption and development of EDTs. Despite the significance of use cases in information systems, the approach is underdeveloped in OM. Although some studies have highlighted the use case as a concept, presented methodological frameworks, and discussed theoretical perspectives, literature falls short in elaborating on the purposes and development of EDT use cases in OM. This doctoral dissertation, drawing on insights from five research articles, seeks to bridge this gap by examining why and how to develop use cases for EDTs in OM. The dissertation summary presents a framework for the development and assessment of EDT use cases, grounded in a review of the literature on the challenges in assessing the use of EDTs, and use case development of specific EDTs in OM presented in the research articles. The framework is applied to examine and analyze the use cases for three EDTs—digital twins, additive manufacturing (AM), and blockchain—presented in the research articles. We suggest that developing use cases alleviates specific challenges in assessing the value of EDTs in OM, including timing and rationale for adoption, contextual application, technological capability and requirements, regulatory considerations, and implications of use. Moreover, the analysis of the research articles highlights that use case development indicates the stage of the EDT hype cycle, facilitating the identification of the over-optimistic stage of “wide-ranging use”, the over-pessimistic “limited use”, and the more realistic “actual use”. Furthermore, in terms of specific methods for use case development, this dissertation summary reviews established practices such as experimentation, prototyping, and expert consultation, before introducing hackathons as an emerging and promising method for EDT use case development in OM, investigated and applied in two of the research articles. The research articles included in the dissertation make technology-specific contributions by introducing digital twin use cases for building lifecycle management and risk management in hydrogen storage and transportation, AM use cases for the emergency production of medical supplies during disruptive events such as pandemics, and a blockchain use case for protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) when sharing digital designs in AM. For operations managers, the framework proposed in this dissertation summary serves as a valuable tool for guiding the development and assessment of EDT use cases. Additionally, this dissertation introduces hackathons as a method to help operations managers develop use cases that are specifically tailored to their business needs and real-world problems, rather than merely following industry trends.