Methodological procedure for the development of a qualitative and quantitative evaluation concept for project benefit assessment

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution not only brings great opportunities for the economy, but also poses major challenges for all stakeholders. Manufacturing companies in particular are affected by challenges such as a lack of innovative strength or the risk of being overtaken by innovative start-ups. However, the dynamic environment and the resulting complexity require faster and better decisions to remain competitive in the long term. Current business practices of established companies do not meet this challenge and risk losing control of their core business. Taking a purely technological approach to this subject harbors costly risks. Only the integration of the various individual technologies into a holistic digital strategy creates efficiency and new growth areas. To exploit the full potential of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) in the manufacturing industry, companies must therefore take a strategic view of the technological options and adapt their organizational structure and culture.
 The main objective of this paper is therefore to describe the procedure for developing a suitable evaluation concept for assessing the economic benefits of digitization projects. The evaluation concept to be developed is designed to be able to perform a multidimensional examination and evaluation of digitization projects in order to enable a quick and well-founded decision on the implementation as well as the prioritization of a specific project or several projects from a qualitative and quantitative point of view. The paper therefore describes a seven-step approach to developing a multidimensional matrix diagram that serves as the basic structure for such an evaluation concept.
 To develop a suitable evaluation concept, the research focus will be carefully examined and in-depth research on two overarching themes will be conducted, resulting in the definition of appropriate evaluation criteria: From a methodological point of view, existing assessment models are considered in general and the strengths and weaknesses of these models are discussed. From a practical perspective, the special requirements of digitization and Industry 4.0 will be addressed. To this end, expert interviews will be conducted and a total of 100 practical examples will be selected from an extensive database and analyzed in a criteria-oriented manner in order to derive assessment dimensions and assessment criteria from both a quantitative and qualitative perspective.