Assessing Industry 4.0 Maturity: An Essential Scale for SMEs

Abstract In the last few years, the debate surrounding the Industry 4.0 phenomenon has experienced a constant rise. Publications on this topic are booming, and scholars are studying every related aspect. Previous research highlights the relevance of technologies in supporting the transformation to Industry 4.0. Moreover, many of the maturity scales designed to address this topic, neglected the area related to the personnel, focusing their attention mostly on the technological part. Furthermore, many SMEs encountered difficulties in using the tools designed for bigger corporations. This research paper aims to provide a new maturity scale for SMEs. In order to realise the new maturity scale, firstly this paper carries out a review of the main Industry 4.0 maturity models available in the literature. Then, moving from this analysis, a new essential maturity scale is proposed and discussed