Exploring product–service systems in the digital era: a socio-technical systems perspective

Smart and Resilient Transformation of Manufacturing Firms

The smart and resilient transformation of manufacturing firms has flourished in the last decade. This paper investigates the smart and resilient transformation of manufacturing firms with the application of digital services. It uses a Serbian data set of 136 manufacturing firms from the Digital Servitization Survey from 2022 coordinated by IFIP WG5.7. The authors applied a different method approach through social network analysis, correlation analysis, and interviews with representatives from the manufacturing firms. The main results show that manufacturing firms that apply an adequate combination of services and digital technologies have the highest impact on the network of manufacturing firms. Moreover, the results show that applying digital technologies, such as additive manufacturing/3D printing, big data analytics, and digital twin, increases the gross annual turnover of manufacturing firms in the COVID-19 era. Finally, the results show that for a successful smart and resilient transformation, manufacturing firms need to develop a strategy and motivation oriented to profit to be resilient enough to withstand market change.

HOW CAN MANAGERS DRIVE FIRM PERFORMANCE VIA DIGITAL INNOVATIONS?

This paper focuses on challenges regarding managerial behaviour and productivity in the context of digitalisation. It is neither understood precisely how managerial behaviours transcribe digital strategy into economic success nor how opportunities from digital innovations are transferred into productivity. A systematic literature review (SLR) is applied to acquire an organised overview of the research question “How does managerial behaviour concerning digital innovations change productivity?” The outcomes of this paper are threefold: (1) The research question will be answered by showing several aspects managers can make use of to influence productivity. In this regard knowledge, change management and data-driven behaviours, the creation of collaborative settings, and (customer) co-creative aspects are of particular importance. (2) Executives will be motivated to reflect and calibrate their own practices. (3) The Gutenberg rooted framework of production factors is used to discuss the results and six suggestions are made to transform the model to digital readiness.

Quality management in industry 4.0 environment: a morphological analysis and research agenda

Purpose

Digitalised and interconnected production systems in the era of fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0 (I4.0) have triggered the need of reshaping the traditional Quality Management (QM) models and roles of quality professionals. The purpose of this paper is to review the body of literature on QM in the I4.0 environment (also termed as “Quality 4.0”) and identify future research possibilities.

Design/methodology/approach

The morphological analysis (MA) framework is used to identify research gaps in a systematic manner. We present the MA framework based on a literature review of 51 papers on the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) list identified using systematic review protocol.

Findings

The MA framework, built on six relevant dimensions, namely, production and operations function, scope of QM activities, enabling technologies, latent capabilities of digitalisation, performance metrics and QM principles, and 41 associated variants, reveals 367 research gaps as an upper bound of opportunities for future research.

Originality/value

This paper is possibly the first to use MA for reviewing the QM literature, presenting important contributions. The MA framework acts as a ready reckoner on the QM in I4.0 literature. It documents research gaps through the construction of a cross-consistency matrix.

Performance measurement and management system 4.0: an action research study in investee NPOs by local government

Purpose

The Fourth Industrial Revolution is increasing the use of digital technologies for delivering products and services. A performance measurement and management system (PMMS) is recognised as a useful system to guide era 4.0; however, the literature has not adequately addressed this challenge in public government and not-for-profit organisations (NPOs). This research aims to investigate the evolution of the PMMS adopted by a local government for the control of investee NPOs in era 4.0.

Design/methodology/approach

Through action research, the authors investigate an Italian municipality and its main investee NPOs. The project involved 4 researchers and 25 managers of the local government and NPOs.

Findings

This paper describes the design of a PMMS developed for a local government to control its investee NPOs. Considering the regulations and managerial needs, the designed system evolved from a fragmented set of indicators based on legitimacy and economic perspectives to a holistic set of indicators based on a comprehensive set of perspectives to consider the changing business environment.

Originality/value

This study sheds light on the design of a PMMS adopted by local governments for controlling investee NPOs in era 4.0. The paper contributes (1) to identify the main control needs for the design of a PMMS in a public network and (2) to capture the evolution of a PMMS in light of era 4.0 by developing two conceptual propositions.

Enabler toward successful implementation of Quality 4.0 in digital transformation era: a comprehensive review and future research agenda

Purpose

Quality 4.0 (Q4.0) is related to quality management in the era of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). In particular, it concentrates on digital techniques used to improve organizational capabilities and ensure the delivery of the best quality products and services to its customer. The aim of this research to examine the vital elements for the Q4.0 implementation.

Design/methodology/approach

A review of the literature was carried out to analyze past studies in this emerging research field.

Findings

This research identified ten factors that contribute to the successful implementation of Q4.0. The key factors are (1) data, (2) analytics, (3) connectivity, (4) collaboration, (5) development of APP, (6) scalability, (7) compliance, (8) organization culture, (9) leadership and (10) training for Q4.0.

Originality/value

As a result of the research, a new understanding of factors of successful implementation of Q4.0 in the digital transformation era can assist firms in developing new ways to implement Q4.0.

HR factors for the successful implementation of Industry 4.0: A systematic literature review

As the world moves deeper into the fourth industrial revolution, organizations around the world are polarizing towards the transformation and adoption of the advanced technologies of Industry 4.0. However, recent studies suggest that organizations struggle and face several managerial challenges in their implementation. As a consequence, many studies examined the potential factors that can influence Industry 4.0 implementation. Based on a systematic literature review, this study has tried to explore, examine, and synthesize the potential human resource (HR) success factors and develop an efficient Industry 4.0 HR framework that can play a vital role in Industry 4.0 implementation. This study would also build a solid foundation for practitioners, academicians, and researchers to get a better understanding of the impact of Industry 4.0 on HR management.

THE DARK SIDE OF A B2B CO-CREATION RELATIONSHIP IN THE FRONT END OF INNOVATION: A GENERATIVE REVIEW

This study aims to conceptualise the risks of a co-creation relationship between providers and customers in the front end of innovation (FEI). The existing literature on the topic of the interactions between customers and providers is vast but mostly reflects the vision of each respective field of science addressing specific issues and dynamics. This review paper combines integrative and generative approaches (Post et al., 2020). The narrative overview methodology (Green et al., 2006) fits the purpose to integrate the contributions of scholars from different areas and with distinct perspectives. The authors present a comprehensive view of the complex and, sometimes, conflictual customer–provider relationship in a business-to-business (B2B) context applied to the FEI. The review, mostly focused in the service industry, included the identification of inconsistencies and poorly explained phenomena. This work contributes decisively to the innovation, management and organisation literature, advancing a model of the projected risks of the specific customer–provider relationship in the FEI phase.

Applying Industry 4.0 technologies in the COVID–19 sustainable chains

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is 1) to investigate the effects on the crucial Industry 4.0 technological innovations that interact between the real and virtual worlds and that are applied in the sustainable supply chain process; 2) to contribute to the identification of the opportunities, the challenges and the gaps that will support the new research study developments and 3) to analyze the impact of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators of the sustainable supply chain performance in the midst of the Coronavirus (COVID-19).

Design/methodology/approach

This research is performed through a bibliographic review in the electronic databases of the Emerald Insight, the Scopus and the Web of Science, considering the main scientific publications on the subject.

Findings

The bibliographic search results in 526 articles, followed by two sequential filters for deleting the duplicate articles (resulting in 487 articles) and for selecting the most relevant articles (resulting in 150 articles).

Practical implications

This article identifies the opportunities and the challenges focused on the emerging Industry 4.0 theme. The opportunities can contribute to the sustainable performance of the supply chains and their territories. The Industry 4.0 can also generate challenges like the social inequalities related to the position of the man in the labor market by replacing the human workforce with the machines. Therefore, the man-machine relationship in the Industry 4.0 era is analyzed as a gap in the literature. Therefore, as a way to fill this gap, the authors of this article suggest the exploration of the research focused on the Society 5.0. Also known as “super-smart society,” this recent theme appeared in Japan in April 2016. According to Fukuda (2020), in addition to the focus on the technological development, the Society 5.0 also aims at the quality of life and the social challenge resolutions.

Originality/value

This article contributes to the analysis of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the sustainable supply chain performance. It addresses the impacts of the Industry 4.0 technologies applied to the supply chains in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it analyzes the research gaps and limitations found in the literature. The result of this study can add value and stimulate new research studies related to the application of the Industry 4.0 technologies as facilitators in the supply chain sustainable performance. It can encourage the studies related to the COVID-19 impacts on the sustainable supply chains, and it can promote the research development on the relationship among the man, the machine and the labor in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

Industry 4.0, quality management and TQM world. A systematic literature review and a proposed agenda for further research

Purpose

The main purpose of this paper is to analyse the current literature situation in terms of relationships between Industry 4.0 and quality management and TQM. The author wanted to understand what topics and issues can be considered the most relevant referring to the so-called Quality 4.0, what the literature is missing opening avenues for further research.

Design/methodology/approach

This research employed a systematic literature review. In total, 75 papers from different sources were reviewed using specific inclusion and exclusion criteria.

Findings

Four categories of topics emerged, namely: creating value within the company through quality (big) data, analytics and artificial intelligence; developing Quality 4.0 skills and culture for quality people; customer value co-creation; cyber–physical systems and ERP for quality assurance and control. This paper also tried to understand if there is a definition of Quality 4.0 based on determined methods.

Research limitations/implications

Systematic literature review could have introduced some limitations in terms of the number and reliability of reviewed papers. Probably some interesting papers had been not intentionally missed.

Practical implications

Consultants and managers in developing and implementing their own Quality 4.0 models could use many practical and discussed implications concerning I4.0 technologies and quality management.

Originality/value

This is one of the first papers which employed the systematic literature review for researching Industry 4.0, quality management and TQM relationships.