I4.0+: Regional development potentials of I4.0

Regional development potentials of Industry 4.0: Open data indicators of the Industry 4.0+ model

This paper aims to identify the regional potential of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). Although the regional background of a company significantly determines how the concept of I4.0 can be introduced, the regional aspects of digital transformation are often neglected with regard to the analysis of I4.0 readiness. Based on the analysis of the I4.0 readiness models, the external regional success factors of the implementation of I4.0 solutions are determined. An I4.0+ (regional Industry 4.0) readiness model, a specific indicator system is developed to foster medium-term regional I4.0 readiness analysis and foresight planning. The indicator system is based on three types of data sources: (1) open governmental data; (2) alternative metrics like the number of I4.0-related publications and patent applications; and (3) the number of news stories related to economic and industrial development. The indicators are aggregated to the statistical regions (NUTS 2), and their relationships analyzed using the Sum of Ranking Differences (SRD) and Promethee II methods. The developed I4.0+ readiness index correlates with regional economic, innovation and competitiveness indexes, which indicates the importance of boosting regional I4.0 readiness.

Czvetkó, T., Honti, G. & Abonyi, J. (2021). Regional development potentials of Industry 4.0: Open data indicators of the Industry 4.0+ model. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0250247.

Data describing the regional Industry 4.0 readiness index

The data article presents a dataset suitable to measure regional Industry 4.0 (I4.0+) readiness. The I4.0+ dataset includes 101 indicators with 248 958 observations, aggregated to NUTS 2 statistical level) based on open data in the field of education (ETER, Erasmus), science (USPTO, MA-Graph, GRID), government (Eurostat) and media coverage (GDELT). Indicators consider the I4.0-specific domain of higher education and lifelong learning, innovation, technological investment, labour market and technological readiness as indicators. A composite indicator, the I4.0+ index was constructed by the Promethee method, to identify regional rank regarding their I4.0 performance. The index is validated with economic (GDP) and innovation indexes (Regional Innovation Index).

Access to data

Honti, G., Czvetkó, T., & Abonyi, J. (2020). Data describing the regional Industry 4.0 readiness index. Data in Brief, 106464.

The concept of industry 4.0 is spreading worldwide and readiness models exist to determine organizational or national maturity. On the other hand, the regional perspective of the digital transformation is yet to be widely researched, although it significantly determines how the concept of industry 4.0 can be introduced to the organisations. This book identifies the regional aspect of industry 4.0 and provides a regional (NUTS 2 classified) industry 4.0 indicator system model that is based on open data sources. This new model serves as a tool to evaluate regional economy to support governmental decisions. It also provides territorial councils with a decision-support tool for field investment decisions. And finally, this model offers investors with a heat map to evaluate regional economies successful implementation of industry 4.0 solutions.

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