Assessing Industry 4.0 Readiness of Portuguese Companies

Abstract

Industry 4.0 (i4.0) has changed the industrial processes. Increasingly, companies have to adapt their processes to follow the technology development which has caused a digital transformation. However, mainly the Small and Medium Enterprises have difficulty to evaluate its i4.0 readiness level and design a strategy that implements the i4.0 concepts. Towards this scenario, we present the SHIFTo4.0 – a self-assessment tool that evaluates the i4.0 readiness level of a company. SHIFTo4.0 is based on a model which contemplates six different dimensions: (i) strategy and organization; (ii) smart factory; (iii) smart operations; (iv) smart products; (v) data-driven services; and (vi) human resources. Each dimension is classified using a scale between 0 and 5. In addition, it provides a report with a set of recommendations, i.e., a roadmap, to guide the company in the i4.0 implementation to achieve a higher readiness level. As result, we present a case study that shows how a company can improve their current i4.0 readiness level by using SHIFTo4.0.