Decision-making Learning Factory for SMEs via IIoT

Industry 4.0 represents a new possibility for manufacturing companies to integrate various digital technologies into their factory floors. These technologies support an interconnected data-driven production, but without an established data foundation at the companies, it can be difficult and expensive to get started on the road towards Industry 4.0. A shift towards new production constellations based on Industry 4.0 will need both new technologies implemented, competencies to handle both data and technologies, and support throughout the organisation of the production companies. This paper suggests a decision-making learning factory aimed towards SMEs; as an artefact to support the learning factory, a mobile IIoT suitcase containing data collected from the SMEs' factories. The data collected were used to help the companies towards building a foundation for datadriven decision-making. An experiment involving 6 SMEs was conducted. The findings show that technology is not a limitation for the SMEs to adopt Industry 4.0, but rather the limited in-house competencies and an understanding of the benefits of implementing industry 4.0 at the organisational level. However, the IIoT pilot project highlights the companies' need for learning-to-learn competencies to adopt new paradigms like industry 4.0. The experiment demonstrated that SMEs see a new aspect of SME production and production planning due to having data-based decision-making.