Industry 4.0 Maturity and Readiness Assessment: A case of a Manufacturing Organization

Abstract

The manufacturing sector is the economic backbone of a country and has traditionally played a key role in the growth of almost every country in the world. In India, the manufacturing sector contributes 17 percent to the country's GDP and is expected to increase to 25 percent by 2025. Of late, the manufacturing sector is entering into a dynamic phase due to the emergence of new technologies leading to the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0. The Industry 4.0 market is projected to reach US dollar 214 billion by 2023. As a result, manufacturing organizations are adopting new technologies, hardware as well as software, to improve the operational efficiency and productivity. In this regard, it has become imperative for organizations to assess their status as well as capability to transition towards Industry 4.0. However, the literature review suggests a lack of comprehensive approaches and their empirical validations in assessing the Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness levels. The literature mostly focuses on descriptive assessment of Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness. Further, there is a dearth of research studies and empirical validations exploring aspects of Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness assessment from a developing country perspective. Hence, we tried to address these gaps in three phases of research. The first phase was aimed at developing a multi-dimensional conceptual framework to assess Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness. While the second phase was devoted to developing and prioritizing indicators for assessing Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness. We obtained six dimensions and 32 indicators from the literature. The third phase included empirical validation of the conceptual framework and its indicators in the context of India's steel manufacturing organization. These indicators were operationalized, and an online and offline survey was conducted among managers in a steel manufacturing organization. 341 responses were selected for further analysis. At the indicator level, a weighted average method was used to determine the organization's Industry 4.0 status. Further, the Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness conceptual framework was validated using the confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) technique in PLS-SEM. The results revealed that the supply chain dimension has a dominant influence on Industry 4.0 maturity and readiness while the production technology dimension has the lowest influence. Finally, based on results and findings, we derived managerial and practical implications for the case study organization.