Industry 4.0 Management: Preliminary Design Implications

Abstract

Industry 4.0 is expected to change competitiveness of manufacturing firms. However, to completely achieve this goal, firms should manage barriers and complexity issues that my hinder its adoption or its effects. For this reason, the study explores, through a literature review, whether and how design theory may be a supporting theory to manage Industry 4.0 adoption and implementation to maximise the opportunities and minimise the risks. The results shows that these research questions require a design approach to innovate not only adopting technologies but reinventing the business practices.

Design Science Research for a New Society: Society 5.0

“…This later aim could appear contradictory to a production context. Indeed, when used in factories, suggestion systems meet the constraints inherent to the shop floor production: the factory is a place of execution and not ideation; operators are highly prescribed, their objectives and the guidance, and time for processes are very precise and let a little place for innovation [6]. Moreover, the factory's performance should be maintained and cannot suffer from troubles caused by experimentation.…”

“…Nevertheless, this last selection and process used in new product development appear to be not suitable for a factory. A factory focuses mainly on the preservation of the production; a change can put the manufacturing system at risk [6]. The notions used previously to characterize innovation, such "out of the box" or "exploration ideas," are not directly comprehensive for a manufacturing context: how can an idea be "out of the box" if it goes against or beside the industrial rules?…”

“…The context of this study is very specific: it focuses on suggestion systems in production, which constitutes, as shown in the literature review, their roots, but at the same time their limitation. First, the manufacturing sector requires ready-to-use solutions from the operators; it is not organized to liberate time and development means for the operators to design more ambitious and impacting solutions on the shopfloor [6]. Second, in production, the processes, organization, standards, etc.…”