Industry 4.0 in SMEs Across the Globe

Drivers, Barriers, and Opportunities

Julian M. Muller, Nikolai Kazantsev

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9780367761905
• eBook ISBN: 9781000515329
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

The field of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) digitalization is becoming more mature and stands to significantly contribute to the full development of the agenda of Industry 4.0. Although national digitalization programs have their own goals, the common focus is on the role of SMEs in global value chains. Since SMEs are known to have challenges around Industry 4.0 implementation, this book integrates experiences from 14 countries worldwide.

Industry 4.0 in SMEs across the Globe: Drivers, Barriers, and Opportunities provides an in-depth overview of Industry 4.0 in SMEs, covering various national, historical, and geographical settings in nine European countries: Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Serbia, and the UK, complemented by five other countries from around the world: Brazil, China, India, Iran, and the U.S.

Each chapter describes the national digitalization program, along with barriers, drivers, and opportunities to implement Industry 4.0 in local SMEs. It subsumes the findings across these countries to identify common themes and clusters of drivers, barriers, and opportunities. The book concludes that there are common approaches of SMEs across the world to adopt Industry 4.0, which are to be understood to increase industrial competitiveness globally.

This book is a great resource for digitalization leaders and laggards, business consultants and researchers, as well as Ph.D. and master's students from industrial engineering and manufacturing backgrounds. Policy makers can also use the contents to better understand the commonalities and differences of national digitalization programs and further support SMEs in their digitalization process.

1 Industry 4.0 Barriers, Drivers, and Opportunities

An Introduction to Lessons Learned from SMEs Worldwide

Julian M. Müller and Nikolai Kazantsev

DOI: 10.1201/9781003165880-1

CONTENTS

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Content of this Book

References

1.1 INTRODUCTION

At the Hanover Fair in 2011, the German government announced the concept of “Industrie 4.0” as part of its high-tech strategy. The concept, now mostly known as “Industry 4.0,” originally aimed to secure the future competitiveness of the German manufacturing industry. It relates to a fourth Industrial Revolution, based on cyber-physical systems (CPS) and the Internet of Things (IoT). CPS aim to resemble and extend the physical world in a virtual one using and generating data. This data generated is shared using the IoT, interconnecting humans, production facilities, and products across the entire value chain. Thus, Industry 4.0 enables horizontal and vertical integration, i.e., across entire industrial value chains, across the entire lifecycle of products, and across several functional departments (Dalenogare et al., 2018; Kagermann et al., 2013; Lasi et al., 2014).

While many technological solutions have been found, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) still lag behind in several regards, relating to their smaller size, resource base, bargaining power, missing economies of scale, and often acting as suppliers without end customer contact (Horváth & Szabó, 2019; Moeuf et al., 2020; Müller et al., 2018). Hence, SMEs cannot grasp the potentials of Industry 4.0 as large enterprises do and face some distinct barriers against Industry 4.0 (Masood & Sonntag, 2020; Sahi et al., 2020; Stentoft et al., 2020). However, for Industry 4.0 to unfold successfully, SMEs also need to be integrated within supply chains. Hence, also for large enterprises and entire supply chains, the implementation of Industry 4.0 in SMEs is vital (Birkel & Müller, 2021; Müller et al., 2020, Veile et al., 2020). Therefore, this book, in addition to strengthening understanding of SMEs’ implementation of Industry 4.0 around the world, aims to regard SMEs as part of entire supply chains that span the globe, that is, as part of industrial ecosystems. In this regard, SMEs despite their small size, need to be integrated into supply chains and ecosystems to achieve horizontal and vertical integration as a central pillar of Industry 4.0 (Benitez et al., 2021; Hahn, 2020; Schmidt et al., 2020).

1.2 CONTENT OF THIS BOOK

This book includes experiences of Industry 4.0 implementation among SMEs located in 14 countries around the world. Contributions from nine European countries, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Serbia, and the UK, provide insights from their lessons learned from Industry 4.0 implementation. Those insights are complemented by five further countries from around the world: Brazil, China, India, Iran, and the US. Each chapter briefly describes the context and the digitalization policy adopted in the country first, and highlights the barriers, drivers, and opportunities that companies identified in relation to Industry 4.0.

Following these 14 perspectives on Industry 4.0 implementation, a further chapter explains why SMEs must be integrated better into supply chains. This chapter provides a meta-analysis of several studies with SMEs, as well as their customers and larger supply chain counterparts. Hence, this chapter attempts to extend the SME perspective on Industry 4.0 implementation.

Finally, the last chapter concludes the book, summarizing commonalities and differences among factors influencing Industry 4.0 in SMEs nationally. This chapter further aggregates Industry 4.0 opportunities, illustrating further collaborative possibilities for SMEs.

We want to thank all authors for their valuable contributions to this book, as well as the publisher, who made this publication possible. The interesting insights on the topic of Industry 4.0 and SMEs shall be of benefit for all readers from academia and practice.

Julian M. Müller and Nikolai Kazantsev

REFERENCES

Benitez, G. B., Ferreira-Lima, M., Ayala, N. F., & Frank, A. G. (2021). Industry 4.0 technology provision: The moderating role of supply chain partners to support technology providers. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/SCM-07-2020-0304

Birkel, H. S., & Müller, J. M. (2021). Potentials of industry 4.0 for supply chain management within the triple bottom line of sustainability – a systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 125612.

Dalenogare, L. S., Benitez, G. B., Ayala, N. F., & Frank, A. G. (2018). The expected contribution of industry 4.0 technologies for industrial performance. International Journal of Production Economics, 204, 383–394.

Hahn, G. J. (2020). Industry 4.0: A supply chain innovation perspective. International Journal of Production Research, 58(5), 1425–1441.

Horváth, D., & Szabó, R. Z. (2019). Driving forces and barriers of industry 4.0: Do multinational and small and medium-sized companies have equal opportunities? Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Elsevier, 146(October 2018), 119–132. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2019.05.021.

Kagermann, H., Wahlster, W., & Helbig, J. (2013). Recommendations for implementing the strategic initiative INDUSTRIE 4.0, in: Final report of the Industrie 4.0 Working Group, Acatech, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Lasi, H., Fettke, P., Kemper, H. G., Feld, T., & Hoffmann, M. (2014). Industrie 4.0. Business & Information Systems Engineering, 56(4), 261–264.

Masood, T., & Sonntag, P. (2020). Industry 4.0: Adoption challenges and benefits for SMEs. Computers in Industry, 121, 103261.

Müller, J. M., Buliga, O., & Voigt, K. I. (2018). Fortune favors the prepared: How SMEs approach business model innovations in Industry 4.0. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 132, 2–17.

Müller, J. M., Veile, J. W., & Voigt, K. I. (2020). Prerequisites and incentives for digital information sharing in industry 4.0 – An international comparison across data types. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 148, 106733.

Moeuf, A., Lamouri, S., Pellerin, R., Tamayo-Giraldo, S., Tobon-Valencia, E., & Eburdy, R. (2020). Identification of critical success factors, risks and opportunities of industry 4.0 in SMEs. International Journal of Production Research, 58(5), 1384–1400.

Sahi, G. K., Gupta, M. C., & Cheng, T. C. E. (2020). The effects of strategic orientation on operational ambidexterity: A study of Indian SMEs in the industry 4.0 era. International Journal of Production Economics, 220, 107395.

Schmidt, M. C., Veile, J. W., Müller, J. M., & Voigt, K. I. (2020). Ecosystems 4.0: Redesigning global value chains. The International Journal of Logistics Management, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLM-03-2020-0145

Stentoft, J., Adsbøll Wickstrøm, K., Philipsen, K., & Haug, A. (2020). Drivers and barriers for Industry 4.0 readiness and practice: Empirical evidence from small and medium-sized manufacturers. Production Planning & Control, 1–18.

Veile, J. W., Schmidt, M. C., Müller, J. M., & Voigt, K. I. (2020). Relationship follows technology! How industry 4.0 reshapes future buyer-supplier relationships. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, ahead-of-print(ahead-of-print). https://doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-09-2019-0318

2 Industry 4.0 towards a Circular Economy

Why Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Must Be Integrated Better within Supply Chains

Petra Unterberger and Julian M. Müller

DOI: 10.1201/9781003165880-2

CONTENTS

2.1 Introduction

2.2 Industry 4.0

2.3 Circular Economy

2.4 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises

2.5 Literature Review

2.6 Challenges of Industry 4.0 towards a Circular Economy regarding SMEs

2.7 Discussion and Conclusion

References

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Industry 4.0 is driven by technologies such as the Internet of Things or cyber-physical systems that connect the physical and digital world. The concept of Industry 4.0 was introduced in 2011 at the Hanover Fair and received large interest from academia and practice since then (Kagermann et al., 2013). To exploit the full potential of Industry 4.0, relating to the concept of a fourth Industrial Revolution, holistic systems across entire value chains and lifecycles of products are necessary that enables smooth representations between these two worlds despite low transaction costs. The establishment of such holistic systems is a key requirement to extend the ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface
• Editors
• Chapter 1 Industry 4.0 Barriers, Drivers, and Opportunities: An Introduction to Lessons Learned from SMEs Worldwide
• Chapter 2 Industry 4.0 towards a Circular Economy: Why Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Must Be Integrated Better within Supply Chains
• Chapter 3 Industry 4.0 in Finland: Towards Twin Transition
• Chapter 4 Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Industry 4.0 Transformation in France
• Chapter 5 The Case of Industry 4.0 with Hungarian SMEs
• Chapter 6 The Adoption of Industry 4.0 Technologies: The Case of Italian Manufacturing SMEs
• Chapter 7 Digitalization and the Future of Production: The Case of Baltic States’ Manufacturing SMEs
• Chapter 8 Industry 4.0 in Poland from a Perspective of SMEs
• Chapter 9 Industry 4.0: Present or Future in Serbia
• Chapter 10 Birthplace of the First Industrial Revolution: Fertile Ground for SMEs in Its Fourth Incarnation
• Chapter 11 The Path Towards Industry 4.0 for Brazilian SMEs
• Chapter 12 Cloud-Based SMART Manufacturing in China
• Chapter 13 Industry 4.0 and SMEs: An Indian Perspective
• Chapter 14 Industry 4.0 and SME Development: The Case of a Middle Eastern Country
• Chapter 15 Industry 4.0 in Russia: Digital Transformation of Economic Sectors
• Chapter 16 Status, Opportunities, and Barriers in Implementing Industry 4.0 in the US
• Chapter 17 Industry 4.0 Experience in SMEs: An International Overview of Barriers, Drivers, and Opportunities