Drivers and barriers for Industry 4.0 readiness and practice: empirical evidence from small and medium-sized manufacturers

The technological development e.g. in terms of Industry 4.0 is moving rapidly enabling manufacturing companies with new possibilities for digital transformations to offer products and services to current and new markets at competitive costs. A mixed-method approach is used to investigate the drivers and barriers for Industry 4.0 readiness and practice among Danish small and medium-sized manufacturers. Data is based on a questionnaire-survey among 190 manufacturers about their readiness for digitalized manufacturing and their actual practice in this area. A main finding is that it is the managers’ lack of perceiving Industry 4.0 drivers, not their perceptions of high Industry 4.0 barriers that obstruct SMEs’…