How do industry 4.0 technologies influence organisational change? An empirical analysis of Italian SMEs

Abstract

PurposeThis article aims to investigate the organisational implications of adopting Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies, giving specific attention to operations. The paper addresses these implications in two directions: organisational prerequisites for, and consequences of, I4.0 technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe research is based on a multiple case study of Italian small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in manufacturing. Ten case studies have been developed through interviews, company visits and secondary data collection.FindingsThe multiple case study results show that: (1) a lean organisational structure supports effective adoption of I4.0 technologies; (2) introducing such technologies is linked to developing a new kind of job profile (i.e. the “Autonomous Operative Job Profile”); and (3) higher levels of technology adoption create a higher need for non-technical competences.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation of this research relates to the highly heterogeneous maturity levels of the sampled companies, due to the relative newness of the I4.0 paradigm. Future research could, therefore, longitudinally analyse the technology integration process within organisations.Practical implicationsThis research provides preliminary evidence about how organisations and technologies co-evolve, thus suggesting that managers should co-design these areas. It also demonstrates the extreme importance of designing a structured process and a clear set of human resource management tools to favour SME organisational development.Originality/valueThe study is built upon a conceptual framework derived from the sociotechnical perspective that analyses the interconnections between technology implementation and organisational change. From the results, three research propositions are derived to be tested on a larger scale.

How human factors affect operators' task evolution in Logistics 4.0

“…In this study, the assistance/augmentation functions were considered in the same scenario, because the level of technological maturity in the analysed context was not such as to allow a distinction between the functions. In this scenario, operators are given higher degrees of autonomy and are required to be proactive and polyvalent (Cimini, Boffelli, et al, 2019); as a result, all the tasks concerning decision‐making or coordination activities become the core of a logistics operator's work.…”

“…In this study, the assistance/ augmentation functions were considered in the same scenario, because the level of technological maturity in the analysed context was not such as to allow a distinction between the functions. In this scenario, operators are given higher degrees of autonomy and are required to be proactive and polyvalent(Cimini, Boffelli, et al, 2019); as a result, all the tasks concerning decision-making or coordination activities become the core of a logistics operator's work.Technology also facilitates new communication mechanisms, which can be used by logistics operators to coordinate the flow of materials; along the entire supply chain, improving internal logistics performance, and exploiting better coordination and management of warehouses and transportation, can also bring benefits to other departments within enterprises. Logistics operators working on the shop floor can support sales processes, contributing to the improvement of the customer service levels of enterprises by providing responsive information exchange about materials and production management.…”

The Impact of Industry 4.0 on Employees—Insights from Australia

“…The impact of I4.0 on the labor market, required worker skills and competences [26,35,36,39,40,45,48].…”

“…The synthesis of the obtained results and their comparison with the literature are presented in Table 5. [12,33,34,43,44,46,49,51] change in functioning of organizations greater digitization and robotization [35,40,47,49,50,52] employee's role in I4.0 not changed significantly [43,44] the most important skills/competences in I4.0 technical skills, problem solving, coding skills, analytical skills, ability to work under pressure [25,35,36,39,42,[44][45][46]48] employers' expectations towards employees diligence, problem-solving orientation, activity in finding solutions, ability to learn, openness to change [36,39,48] employees' fluctuations both hiring new employees and training the existing ones will take place [39] preparation employees for I4.0 courses & trainings related to I4.0, self-learning [36,50] technologies with the greatest impact on labor market AI, automatics & robotics [29,33] impact of I4.0 on labor market simple physical/manual works will be replaced or liquidated, health & safety will improve, possibility of job loss by low-skilled workers [12,26,[31][32][33]38,…”

“…The most frequently described topics are related to the impact of I4.0 on the human work or labor market, the desired skills/competences and change in functioning of organizations in the I4.0 era. There are articles that discuss several issues related to the impact of I4.0 on employees [33,35,36,39,44,48] and those that deal with only one issue [25,29,30,34,37,38,45,47,51]. However, there is no publication that covers all the issues contained in Table 5.…”