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This paper explores the integration of digital twins in the context of Industry 4.0 and sustainability, highlighting their potential to increase operational efficiency, optimize material usage and minimize waste. To demonstrate these benefits, case studies are presented in which a digital twin of a real manufacturing system was implemented. The digital twin enabled us to run different \u201cwhat-if\u201d scenarios to evaluate the improvements in the manufacturing system, efficiency and reduction of raw material consumption and waste by incorporating quality control operations at all assembly stations. Based on the analyzed results of both case studies, we demonstrated that additional quality control operations had a significant impact on the efficiency of the manufacturing system and its sustainability, as waste was significantly reduced. The proposed approach has proven to be highly effective for different types and sizes of manufacturing systems, especially those with high waste generation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/systems13030180","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,6]],"date-time":"2025-03-06T09:59:17Z","timestamp":1741255157000},"page":"180","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":24,"title":["Integrating Digital Twin Technology to Achieve Higher Operational Efficiency and Sustainability in Manufacturing Systems"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"given":"Matev\u017e","family":"Resman","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Niko","family":"Herakovi\u010d","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mihael","family":"Debevec","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"841","DOI":"10.1016\/j.jmsy.2024.04.027","article-title":"Digital twin-enabled robust production scheduling for equipment in degraded state","volume":"74","author":"Pandhare","year":"2024","journal-title":"J. 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