Industry 4WRD readiness assessment for Amlex technology: Industry 4.0 strategy dimension improvement via a fishbone analysis

Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment model introduced by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) of Malaysia is among one of the Industry 4.0 readiness assessment and maturity models that can assist the manufacturing companies in identifying the performance gaps and improvement plans towards the Industry 4.0 transformation. MITI's Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment model is also in line with other global implementation initiatives and can be one of the practical worldwide guidelines, references, and standards for the Industry 4.0 transformation. Since early 2015, various Industry 4.0 readiness assessment and maturity models were introduced, and the Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment model is still a new model released in 2018 by MITI. This thesis discussed the methodology and processes of applying the Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment model to assist the manufacturing companies in identifying the current gaps and areas for improvement plans towards Industry 4.0 concepts. In this thesis, one manufacturing small-medium enterprise (SME) was selected to implement the methodology and processes to assess the Industry 4.0 dimensions as the primary focus during a self-assessment and the actual Readiness Assessment. The Industry4WRD Readiness Assessment designed rubrics with a description of criteria to facilitate the processes and methods are demonstrated with the before and after results' computation, and the Industry 4.0 readiness assessment profile has been concluded. This thesis has developed the Industry 4.0 Strategy dimension improvement plan by adopting the Fishbone diagram root cause analysis (RCA) method to address the problem statement faced by Amlex Technology. The final results have shown it improved from score one (1) to two (2) out of four; the maximum score for the Industry 4.0 strategy dimension and the overall People’s C-Value increased from 1.40 to 2.60. The thesis also revealed that the implemented solutions for the Industry 4.0 dimension had improved the overall Industry 4.0 Readiness Assessment profile from 27% to 46%, with improvement also seen on other dimensions for Process and Technology shift factor. It shows that once SME has established the Industry 4.0 strategy, the transformation for Process and Technology can easily be implemented. The other outcome is the SME also can strategizeon all aspects of the People, Process, and Technology in their transformation plan using this model towards the Industry 4.0 concepts. Despite the improvement observed at this SME, the thesis also has some limitations and challenges. It was only conducted on one company representing one SME sector, which others may have different root causes related to the same problem. This thesis's findings and results have enabled the SME to work with the relevant agencies to request further assistance and support, including funding and other resources to transform towards Industry 4.0.