Abstract:

Manufacturing companies are essential participants in supply and value-added chains, which often operate on a global scale and have recently experienced significant disruptions resulting in real threats and difficulties in achieving satisfactory business profits. Implementing solutions in line with the Industry 4.0 concept, digital transformation and reliance on new technological trends are opportunities to survive in the difficult conditions of a turbulent environment and changes caused by, e.g., the coronavirus pandemic, international conflicts or even wars. Because of these challenges, there is a need to have adequate tools and criteria for assessing the digital maturity of enterprises. Among the key assessment criteria, technological ones certainly play an important role, which should also be significantly complemented by those concerning the organization's strategy adapted to dynamic technological changes, as well as an organizational culture open to the phenomena related to digital transformation and the introduction of new business models. The primary purpose of this paper is to discuss a set of criteria for assessing the digital maturity of manufacturing companies implementing the Industry 4.0 principles. Selected models and criteria used so far are presented synthetically. Based on the literature research, non-participant observations and unstructured interviews, a set of criteria was defined, which was then used in empirical computational experiments based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). The empirical data was connected with a manufacturing company that has been taking steps to implement digital transformation in line with the Industry 4.0 scenarios for several years. The analyzed digital maturity assessment criteria were discussed with business practitioners, and the research results confirm their usefulness in making strategic and operational decisions related to the digital transformation of production enterprises. The obtained results also constitute a reasonable basis for the development of further study on digital maturity assessment methods.