Role of human factors in cloud manufacturing adoption across manufacturing micro, small and medium enterprises

Abstract

ABSTRACT This study aims to identify and analyze human factors (HFs) affecting cloud manufacturing (CM) adoption across manufacturing micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). Ranking of the identified HFs as per their importance was done using the AHP method. Further, the DEMATEL was used to get contextual interrelation and cause-effect relationships among the HFs. Results of the AHP method showed that factors vision of top management (HF4), collaborative human-robotsystem (HF1), real-time decision making (HF6), customer-centric servitization (HF8) and Skillset of employees (HF3) are the high priority factors. These factors also belong to the causal factor (most significant factor) group, determined using the DEMATEL approach. Thus, to enhance CM adoption, decision and policymakers of the manufacturing firm should provide more attention to improvize these factors. The study’s findings will be helpful to human resource managers, decision-makers and policymakers of the manufacturing firm to formulate effective short-term and long-term implementation plans and strategies. Further, the study’s outcomes can also be helpful for CM service providers to improve their marketing strategies. This is one of the preliminary research which analyzed human aspects of CM adoption across Indian manufacturing MSMEs using a hybrid AHP-DEMATEL approach.