Labour 4.0: developing competences for smart production

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to determine how companies develop and acquire competences to capture the benefits of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies. The authors argue that this is a fundamental and often overlooked prerequisite for industrial transformation. Design/methodology/approach The authors conduct a process study of 33 small- and medium-sized companies engaged in the transformation of a manufacturing industry from the different perspectives of manufacturers or manufacturing solution providers. Findings Key findings indicate a strong link between the specific competence development approach, the specific intricacies of the application domain and the process outcomes. On this basis, a competence development framework is proposed. Research limitations/implications The conclusions are drawn from a Danish population of companies in the manufacturing industry and are based on particular contingencies, such as low volume/high mix, high skill, low tech and high cost. However, the findings are believed to be applicable across different sets of contingencies where the need to combine legacy and emerging technologies is present, and where the human factor is central to leveraging technology beyond predefined supplier specifications. Practical implications In a time of extraordinary investments in the manufacturing of technologies in support of digital transformation, the development of strategic and operational competences to support these investments is lagging behind. This paper develops a conceptual outset for closing this gap. Originality/value The research is based on the fundamental argument that to efficiently apply new technology, a strategic approach to the acquisition of new knowledge and skills is required. The empirical research demonstrates that new skills and knowledge are often assumed to follow automatically from the use of new technologies. However, we demonstrate that this perspective in fact limits the ability to capture the potential benefits ascribed to I4.0 technologies. The authors propose that the competence strategy needs to be expansive and cover not only the technological competences but also the organizational- and individual-level competences. These results add to our understanding of how the digital transformation of manufacturing companies unfolds.