Implementation of I4.0 technologies in production systems: opportunities and limits in the digital transformation

According to Industry 4.0 (I4.0) paradigms, the smart factory can be considered as a factory ‘connected’ adopting digital technologies to share information between people, machines, and sensors. Therefore, digital transformation represents one of the key strategies to integrate digital technology into all business areas, favouring the increase of profit, productivity, and agility of the company. This is not only a technological change but a cultural change requiring organizational, process and economic improvement. Scientific research proved that 84% of digital transformations fail or achieve targets below expectations. Consistent with this issue, companies should address the need to implement a digital process, self-evaluating the readiness level for digital transformation. In this regard, the paper aims to develop a model that evaluates the organisations' readiness to implement digital transformation according to I4.0 targets. For this purpose, the model adopts an online survey of 38 questions to identify the readiness degree according to a five- level scale. The survey was submitted to a sample of companies operating in different sectors. The works' results show the model's reliability to provide the readiness level for digital transformation and allows a preliminary evaluation of the companies’ aspects most impactful on digital transformation implementation.