RSSE: Günter Prockl (Copenhagen Business School) From Physical Flow to Digital Shadows or Digital Twins: Rethinking the Supply Chain?

It is our pleasure that Günter Prockl (Copenhagen Business School) will present on Thursday, September 18, 2025, at 12:45 in room RB436 about the topic “From Physical Flow to Digital Shadows or Digital Twins: Rethinking the Supply Chain?”.

Registration is not required and anyone who would like to attend is warmly invited.

It is also possible to participate online via MS Teams at this link. In case of any connection issues, please contact lubomir.cingl@vse.cz.

ABSTRACT: Supply chains have historically emerged from the physical flow of goods. Yet, recent advances in digitalization are transforming how supply chains are designed, managed, and governed. The ongoing shift is not limited to real-time execution and visibility, but extends to documentation, compliance, and governance, introducing new demands for transparency and trust. Concepts such as Digital Twins and Digital Product Passports, enabled by IoT and blockchain, allow businesses to create digital reflections of physical processes, thereby facilitating new models of holistic supply chain management. This seminar explores the question of how far this digital mirroring can extend and who decides what should be mirrored. Drawing on recent research on digital twins, carbon accounting, and blockchain applications, we critically assess the maturity of these technologies, their implications for cross-institutional supply chains, and the challenges arising when digital shadows attempt to capture complex realities of flows, actors, and governance.

BIO: Günter Prockl is Associate Professor of Supply Chain Management at Copenhagen Business School, Department of Digitalization. Before joining academia, he gained several years of industry experience in production planning and control, as well as in consulting. He has held academic positions at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg and Mercator University Duisburg and has also worked as Director of Supply Chain Management at the Fraunhofer Society. His research focuses on management, services, and operations in supply chains and logistics, with particular attention to logistics service providers, digitalization, business models, sustainability, and the maturity of digital solutions. He has authored two monographs and more than fifty academic publications in leading journals and conferences. He serves on editorial boards including Electronic Markets, International Journal for Physical Distribution and Logistics Management, and Journal of Business Logistics.