Does Industry 4.0 Matter to Automotive SME Suppliers? The Role of Advanced Digital Technologies in the Strategic Work of Firms in the Swedish Automotive Valley

Automotive small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers are important players in many national economies. They are currently facing increased pressure to manage the undergoing, demanding changes in the automotive industry. One proposed way for the firms to manage is to introduce Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies in their production, but for this to happen the firms need to consider such technologies in their strategic work. In this study, insights were gathered through interviews with representatives from 24 SME durable goods suppliers within automotive in Sweden, to find out what role I4.0 technologies play in their business-level strategic work. The findings show that these firms do not seem to consider the introduction of I4.0 technologies in production in their strategic work. The firms also do not include any other kind of long-term improvement programs in production in their strategizing. This goes against recommendations from several prior studies, which have emphasized the importance of I4.0 technologies in production for the future competitiveness of automotive SME suppliers. This study contributes to the discussion on how automotive SME suppliers can use I4.0 technologies strategically in their production, by being the first to empirically investigate the role of production in these firms' strategic work.