Industrial Metaverse in Supply Chain Management: Applications, Concepts, and Open Research Paths

This research study examines the applications of the industrial metaverse in supply chain management. Thus, it reviews and analyzes the up-to-date knowledge along the Supply Chain Operations Reference Model. Therefore, a structured literature review is conducted. We derive six core functionalities of the industrial metaverse in supply chains: visibility and monitoring, prediction, simulation, collaboration, training, and optimization. Furthermore, their presence along the different phases of a supply chain is investigated. Besides the functionalities, the relationship between the industrial metaverse and simulation applications and digital twins is analyzed, and a brief description of possible metaverse architectures is provided. This study additionally derives research gaps within the emerging field of metaverse applications and research and defines paths to tackle them.