Within an international manufacturing network (IMN), one particular factory, called the lead factory is responsible for development of new products, processes and technologies as well as transferring these to the subsidiaries within the IMN. These responsibilities require coordination, which is found difficult even in the best-performing companies due to its complexity. When the responsibility for development of Industry 4.0 technologies are included such as cyber-physical systems and Internet of Things the complexity increases further. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to identify what are the challenges with coordination of technology development and transfer of Industry 4.0 technologies in IMNs. Accordingly, a real-time embedded case study was carried out with six manufacturing companies. One major finding is that development of Industry 4.0 technologies does not fit the current way of organizing technology development at lead factories. Another finding is that several of the identified challenges connected to technology development can be derived from a lack of a long-term strategy ensuring competence for future needs.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.