Maersk: logistics digital twins are still early, and applications lag manufacturing
Maersk Insights published an explainer on April 11, 2025 by Nichole Allem that defines a digital twin as a virtual replica of a physical object, system or process and scopes the idea in logistics to assets such as containers, warehouses, ports and trucks, monitored in real time and maintained predictively. It lists the uses it sees for logistics providers, simulating routing scenarios with IoT tracking data, replicating a warehouse to test layouts and workflows, and giving customers more accurate delivery estimates, and it names the challenges: sensors, IoT devices and analytics tools, trained staff, and data security and privacy. Its verdict on adoption is cautious: logistics early adopters are experimenting, and applications there remain limited next to manufacturing, and Maersk's own trend map found little C-suite or startup activity around the term, though research and patent activity is stronger.
This is the caution to carry into any supplier meeting: Maersk wrote in April 2025 that logistics applications remain limited next to manufacturing and that its trend map found little executive or startup activity around the term. The practical reading is to ask for a logistics reference site, a warehouse, a port or a fleet running the twin in production, rather than a manufacturing case or a demo. The asset list in the explainer, containers, warehouses, ports and trucks, is also the supplier map, and the challenge list, sensors and IoT devices, analytics tools, trained people and data security, is what a buyer should price before the software. The page is dated April 11, 2025 and is used here for its definition and its caution, not as news.