Adoption of information and digital technologies for sustainable smart manufacturing systems for industry 4.0 in small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs)

Abstract

An enterprise reference model in a conventional system paradigm guides users when selecting manufacturing elements, configuring the required elements into a manufacturing system, modeling the system options for evaluative processes, and comparing the system solutions with the predefined performance metrics. At present, digital innovation has a close connection with firms' sustainability. Sustainability and digital innovation are two essential components of the circular economy. In this study, an integrated decision-making framework called the q-ROF-MEREC-RS-DNMA is developed. In this approach, the q-ROF-MEREC-RS method is applied to compute the subjective and objective weights of criteria to the adoption of information and digital technologies for sustainable smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 in small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs), and the q-ROF-DNMA model is used to assess the preferences of industries over different criteria to the adoption of information and digital technologies for sustainable smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 in SMMEs. An empirical case study to evaluate the main criteria for the adoption of information and digital technologies for sustainable smart manufacturing systems for Industry 4.0 in small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) is taken. Also, comparison and sensitivity investigation are made to show the superiority of the developed framework.