Quantification of the process improvement exigency related to Industry 4.0

Abstract

PURPOSE: The main objective of this paper is to develop the I4 necessity index for quantification of process improvement exigency related to I4.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Based on literature review and previous research, we decided to develop a new I4N index. This index is not intended to identify the current state of Industry 4.0 or the company's readiness for this concept, but to assess the need to implement I4. By implementing I4 we mean mostly the deployment of intelligent technologies, informatization and automation of business processes. Our philosophy is to develop a simple design for a minimum number of factors that may give rise to an internal or external need to implement I4. The secondary output of the I4N index is the quantification of the level of process improvement potential related to the selected production and logistic processes.

FINDINGS: We emphasize, it as a demand or more specifically, an exigency, rather than a readiness for Industry 4.0. We developed an Industry 4.0 necessity index (I4N index). We assigned weights to individual factors in order to quantify the process improvement exigency related to I4 and we used the list of manufacturing and logistic processes from previous research. We did not apply the list of intelligent technologies, although most indexes of the I4 readiness also take these technologies into account.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The basic approach of our research was to create a mathematical model that could easily quantify the potential for improving business processes related to Industry 4.0.