An initial survey on the readiness of Industry 4.0 adoption in the manufacturing industries

In developed countries, the majority of manufacturing companies are moving to Industry 4.0 to stay competitive. But as far as concerning the developing countries, there should be need of proper knowledge about the Industry 4.0. This article aims to identify, evaluate, and validate the readiness factors to implement the Industry 4.0 concept. Key insights from manufacturing industries that have adopted Industry 4.0 are presented in this study using a mixture of qualitative and empirical research. A survey questionnaire was used to study 175 manufacturing industries in India’s northern area for this reason. In the beginning, normality testing was done using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test and the Shapiro-Wilk test. Following this, using the SPSS software, the survey results were examined using non-parametric tests including the Kruskal-Wallis test which has been employed to ensure the statistical deviations among the readiness; Spearman’s correlation test and Chi-square test have been employed for analyzing the significant relationship of each readiness factor with all the Industry 4.0 benefits. The findings of the survey are presented in this article for evaluating the readiness of manufacturing industries. Also, readiness factors were validated based on the benefits realized by manufacturing industries as a result of implementing Industry 4.0 technologies through the development of sixteen hypotheses. To reflect its novelty, this work investigates significant relationship of readiness factors of Industry 4.0 implementation with the benefits achieved. Besides, to the utmost of the author’s knowledge, this survey is the first to examine Industry 4.0 adoption status in Indian manufacturing industries. According to the findings, readiness factors have a significant relationship with the benefits achieved through the implementation of Industry 4.0, and the research agenda for the future are discussed.