Defining smes’ 4.0 readiness indicators

Abstract

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. Industry 4.0 revolution offers smart manufacturing; it systematically incorporates production technology and advanced operation management. Adopting these high-state strategies can increase production efficiency, reduce energy consumption, and decrease manufacturer costs. Simultaneously, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) were the backbone of economic growth and development. They still lack both the knowledge and decision-making to verify this high-stage technology’s performance and implementation. Therefore, the research aims to define the readiness indicators to assess and support SMEs toward Industry 4.0. The research begins with found aspects that influence the SME 4.0 readiness by using Bibliometric techniques. The result shows the aspects which were the most occurrences such as the Industrial Internet, Cloud Manufacturing, Collaborative Robot, Business Model, and Digital Transformation. They were then grouped into five dimensions by using the visualization of similarities (VOS) techniques: (1) Organizational Resilience, (2) Infrastructure System, (3) Manufacturing System, (4) Data Transformation, and (5) Digital Technology. Cronbach’s alpha then validated the composite dimensions at a 0.926 level of reliability and a significant positive correlation. After that, the indicators were defined from the dimension and aspects approach. Finally, the indicators were pilot tested by small enterprises. It appeared that 23 indicators could support SMEs 4.0 readiness indication and decision-making in the context of Industry 4.0.