Industry 4.0—Premise for Sustainability: Implementation Degree in Manufacturing Companies from Romania

Abstract

Industry 4.0 cannot be understood without sustainable development, being an essential condition for ensuring market success, economic growth, and minimal environmental impact. Considering the increase in interest for applying Industry 4.0 principles by industrial companies, the aim of this paper is to find the degree and benefits of implementing the new technologies by manufacturing engineering companies from Romania. The research methodology proposes testing the opinion of top managers regarding certain Industry 4.0 issues. Data processing and analysis was conducted by means of SPSS software. The obtained results revealed that industrial companies from Romania show quite a high interest in developing all the processes from a company regarding the entire process flow, from client order to product delivery. Moreover, small and micro companies that participated in this study have recorded notable scores in respect to implementing the principles of Industry 4.0, considering their flexibility and the communication among employees, which is more efficient than in case of large and medium companies. We concluded that this study facilitates an understanding of the degree of implementing Industry 4.0 principles by Romanian manufacturing companies that stands at the base of sustainable development of businesses.