State of Industry 4.0 Across German Companies

The following paper offers an insight about a pilot study concerning the readiness level of companies in terms of Industry 4.0. The pilot study was conducted in Germany and France with the aim of evaluating the possible gap in development between industries in both countries. This paper focuses on the results in Germany. The methodology was designed according to the research onion and an inductive approach was selected. A maturity scoring model was created to evaluate the current level of readiness of Industry 4.0. The companies were classified according to enterprise size from small to big and rated in different dimensions from level zero to six (outsider to top performer). A survey method was chosen and realized through personal interviews or conference calls. The evaluation was carried out using the method of descriptive statistics as the data was only a sample out of a larger population. For the study 24 German enterprises were interviewed focusing on six different dimensions named as product development process, steering and control, manufacturing and operations, smart services, process organization and big data. As an overall result it can be determined that level two (intermediate) was the highest average level which has been achieved relating to the enterprise size. The highest rating was reached in the field of big data. However, it has to be noted that there is large potential in German companies to reach a higher readiness level in terms of Industry 4.0.