The importance of Industry 4.0 technologies when selecting an ERP system – An empirical study

The paper deals with the issue of the impact of the “Industry 4.0” concept on the process of selection of the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Firstly, review of the literature regarding the ERP system selection is presented, with the emphasis on the role of the new technologies in such selection. Secondly, the content of the term “Industry 4.0” is discussed, and put into context with the nature of ERP systems. The main part of the article then presents the results of the survey conducted among the medium and large industrial companies in the Czech Republic. Employees in the position of decision makers in the matter of selecting an ERP system were asked to participate. The survey used the form of questionnaire with close-ended questions with five-point scales, and investigated the attitude of the Czech manufacturing companies to the selected technologies of “Industry 4.0” and the importance of particular criteria for the selection of new ERP system. Investigated criteria were divided into 9 groups, where 5 of them were derived from previous research on the topic of ERP systems selections, and dealt with system price, portability, modularity, user experience and security. The remaining 4 groups were aimed at the selected technologies of “Industry 4.0” – big data, system integration, cloud computing and automatic identification and data capture. Kruskal-Wallis test and Neményi method of post-hoc analysis were used to compare the importance of particular criteria expressed by the respondents. The results show that although the companies are aware of the future challenges raised by the “Fourth Industrial Revolution,” in the selection of ERP systems they still emphasise mostly the previously used criteria such as price or modularity. As for the criteria connected to “Industry 4.0,” the ability of a system to deal with big data was assessed as the most important one.