A Technology Selection Framework for Manufacturing Companies in the Context of Industry 4.0

One of the main characteristics of Industry 4.0 is the impact of technology as an accelerant or catalyst that allows individualized solutions, flexibility and cost savings in industrial processes. Manufacturing companies will require considering various technologies including Internet of Things (IoT) and analytics platforms, enterprise resource planning systems, requirements for edge processing and cloud storage. While understanding the potential of these modern notions, manufacturing organizations experience severe challenges in bringing ideas down to the shop floor. Results of various studies indicate that there is an increasing demand for technology selection approach for guided support in developing an organization-specific Industry 4.0 vision and roadmap. This paper proposes a decision-making framework for manufacturing technology selection by incorporating technological, social and business considerations in a single loop.