Analysis of Key Success Factors for Industry 4.0 Development

Industry 4.0 can use production data and integrated information to make a production line perform dynamically and flexibly. Industry 4.0 can also make information be circulated easily and enable managers to make decisions more accurately and rapidly. The production process can be accelerated by those benefits. However, manufacturers do not have complete transformation strategies for Industry 4.0 yet. This study tries to find out the key success factors of Industry 4.0 from the cases of European manufacturing enterprises. The development histories of Siemens, Asea Brown Boveri (ABB) and Schneider electrics were analyzed through multiple cases comparisons. The same and different factors were compared to find out the key success factors of industry 4.0 development through thematic analysis. The key success factors of industry 4.0 identified is helpful for guiding the development strategy and transformation plan for other companies in the future.