Examining smart manufacturing challenges in the context of micro, small and medium enterprises

ABSTRACT

Smart manufacturing is transforming the industry, and its adoption offers significant benefits to manufacturers, suppliers and customers, such as enhanced organisational performance, competitive advantage, mass customisation, improved sustainability and better collaboration. The objective of this research is to identify the implementation barriers of smart manufacturing and to explore the cause–effect relationship between them using a fuzzy-based Decision Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) approach. Through expert opinions and literature review, 20 barriers to smart manufacturing adoption were identified. The results showed that ‘lack of product digitisation’, ‘lack of ubiquitous design and manufacturing setup’, ‘resistance to change’, ‘lack of data synchronisation’ and ‘lack of high tech infrastructure support’ were the significant barriers in the Indian Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). The paper intends to guide the managers, governmental organisations and smart manufacturing service providers to formulate effective smart factory adoption strategies in the manufacturing domain.

KEYWORDS:

• Barriers
• decision-making
• Fuzzy-DEMATEL
• Industry 4.0
• MSMEs
• smart manufacturing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).