Modelling Industry 4.0 transformation: a comparative approach between academic literature and French companies’ transformation cases

Abstract

With a view to revitalizing the economy, the transformation of French SMEs and ETIs towards the Industry of the Future is being carried out with a great deal of public funding. However, this transformation is mainly driven by suppliers of new technologies. Our consulting and research experience has shown that the objectives, tools, and methods used to transform companies are poorly adapted to their real needs and do not create as much value as expected. From an academic research point of view, companies' transformations towards Industry 4.0 are studied from different angles, resulting in various diagnostics and maturity models. The contribution of this paper aims to present, through a comparative approach between academic literature and reported real cases of transformation, the links between Stakes, Initiatives, and Results for an Industry 4.0 transformation. In a first step, we analyze the state of the art of the academic literature on the challenges and results of the Industriy 4.0 transformation. We analyze 50 cases of transformation of French companies presented by the Alliance Industrie du Futur, in charge of promoting the deployment of Industry 4.0. This analysis will be based on the modeling of a tripartite directed graph. Finally, we compare the results of the analysis in order to detect gaps to fill between current industrial practice and the state of academic knowledge. Our conclusions allow us to highlight the avenues of research to be explored.