Digital enabled agility: Industry 4.0 unlocking real-time information processing, traceability, and visibility to unleash the next extent of agility

ABSTRACT

Digital enabled agility reflects the transformative outset of an organisation to first upgrade its business processes digitally towards facilitating real-time information processing/capabilities. Second, tapping from real-time capabilities, digital enabled agility maximises an agile response's efficacy in enhancing the sophistication of rapidity, flexibility, and sensing involved. In this backdrop, driven by newer IT infrastructure and disruptive technology, this research accentuates on Industry 4.0 digitalisation to understand how a manufacturer can gain digital enabled agility. An empirical survey of manufacturers within the premise of Industry 4.0 is conducted. Drawn from the findings, the capabilities of traceability and visibility can be facilitated by Industry 4.0 that would improve information sharing and information quality in real-time. These capabilities are key propellants to unlock the digital extent of agility. This research however details further how this scope of agility is an extension to that of the scope of typical agility in terms of its ability to handle expansive information processing needs and dynamic coordination/resource orchestration. Insights are weaved under the purviews of (a) organisational information processing view and (b) the manufacturer who is coordinating contemporary dynamic production and allied value chain requirements.

KEYWORDS:

• Agility
• Industry 4.0
• environmental dynamism
• real-time
• information sharing
• information quality

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS:

• SDG 9: Industry
• innovation and infrastructure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Data availability statement

Data is available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Vivek Roy

Vivek Roy (PhD Indian Institute of Management Raipur) is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Indian Institute of Management Kashipur. His expertise primarily revolves around diverse frontiers in Operations and Supply Chain Management to address the interactions between logistics management, information management, operations strategy, purchasing and supply management, servitisation, and sustainability. Specifically, these frontiers shape Prof. Vivek’s teaching as well as his research orientation to connect operations with other disciplines such as strategy, marketing, finance, and information systems. His works have appeared in niche outlets such as the International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Production Economics, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, International Journal of Management Reviews (IJMR) (British Academy of Management), to list a few amongst many. He has published two single-authored publications in top-rated outlets. He is also a Consulting Editor at IJMR as well as editorial board member in a few other notable outlets.

Tobias Schoenherr

Tobias Schoenherr is Professor of Purchasing and Supply Chain Management at the Eli Broad College of Business at Michigan State University. He is an internationally renowned and award-winning scholar and teacher focusing on the area of sourcing, with a particular interest in buyer-supplier relationships and electronic procurement. He obtained his PhD from Indiana University in Operations Management and Decision Sciences and has published more than 55 papers in peer-reviewed academic journals.

Jayanth Jayaram

Jayanth Jayaram is a Full Professor of Marketing and Supply Chain Management at the Price College of Business at the University of Oklahoma. He did his Ph.D. at Michigan State University. He has published in internationally reputed journals like the Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, Journal of International Business Studies and this journal. Before joining the University of Oklahoma, he was a Moore Research Fellow and Professor of Management Science at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. His research comprises broader areas ranging from sustainability, global sourcing, healthcare supply chain management, and supply chain risk management.