Thèse Christophe KOLLROS

Comment donner aux PME les moyens de réussir un passage structuré à l'Industrie 4.0 ?

Industry 4.0, with its impact on products, business models and jobs, represents a major challenge for companies that have to deal with these changes. This is why it was decided to focus on the following research question: How to help SMEs to progress in a structured way in the implementation of Industry 4.0?

This question has been derived in three sub-questions the first one being : How to enable SMEs to assess their maturity status towards Industry 4.0 and

identify areas for improvement ? 

For this, maturity model artifacts were presented. These artifacts are used to assess an organization against a given domain and identify potential  mprovements. The most effective development method was identified as the one proposed by Becker et al. It was chosen as the basis for the work, although it was slightly adapted. The specific needs of SMEs were also carefully studied in order to define a corresponding tool. This study was followed by a literature review of currently available Industry 4.0 maturity models, which showed that they do not meet the needs of SMEs. This led to the development of a maturity model for Industry 4.0. This maturity model was validated by applying it to the Hildesheim site. This led to the second research question: How can a coherent strategy for the implementation of Industry 4.0 be developed and a structured action plan be derived from it?

An interpretation of the results of the maturity assessment and an ideal were proposed. This allows the company on the one hand to understand what

is possible with Industry 4.0 and on the other hand to define the level to be reached in each category. The interdependencies between the categories have

been explained so that companies can develop a coherent strategy. An action plan per category was proposed to help SMEs in their strategy development.

The action plan and projects are at the heart of the implementation of Industry 4.0; however, these are important changes that affect the entire company. It is therefore necessary to anticipate and prepare for these changes. This leads to the third research question: How to implement the changes induced by Industry

4.0 so that they are sustainable?

To do this, a literature review was conducted in order to find answers to four questions: Is it better to have a fast and brutal change or a slow and

continuous change? Is it better to have a bottom-up change or a change imposed by the management? What methods are currently available for organizing

change? What are the pitfalls to avoid? Based on this literature review and the experience gained at Howmet, a change method has been proposed for the

implementation of Industry 4.0. Keyword Industry 4.0; Maturity Model; Change Management; Business Strategy; SME