A Framework to Incorporate Industry 4.0 into SME to Enhance Resource Planning

Abstract: Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) have grown steadily in recent years.  SMEs generate 59.7 % of value-added and 65.5 % of employment in the ‘non-financial business economy’ in Sweden. It's important for the success of SMEs to be ready to provide high product availability to customers at minimal operation costs. The challenges faced by SMEs are tougher in global competition. There is a rapid growth in the industrial revolution to deal with the challenges as well as competition. This work mainly focuses on implementing resource planning (RP) and adapting to the latest technologies of Industry 4.0 into SMEs to face the challenges. But incorporating Industry 4.0 in a major struggle in the SMEs.  The thesis provides a view of Resource Planning implementation. The authors describe the resource planning implementation techniques and define the requirements for its successful implementation. Resource Planning (RP) adoption factors have been studied quite extensively over the years. However, this master thesis tries to investigate the less explored area of resource planning. Relatively a smaller amount of research has been conducted, when it comes to implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies especially in Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).  Industry 4.0 provides new paradigms for the industrial management of SMEs. Supported by a growing number of new technologies, this concept appears more flexible and less expensive than traditional enterprise information systems. This paper presents a literature review of existing applied research covering different Industry 4.0 issues about SMEs. Furthermore, the analysis is done to understand the correlation between the identified factors of Industry 4.0 technologies. The research findings indicate that the use of IoT and Cloud computing are major advantages for resource planning in an SME. The results from the analysis are presented in a framework designed for the future adaptation of these technologies. Despite the research limitations, the findings show a high advantage. Finally, the author suggests a future scope of research.