Autor: Birgit von See

A successful digital transformation for attaining Industry 4.0, is a crucial success criterion for many companies today. The ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic has shown the need for digitalization in companies and has further accelerated this development. However, these times, companies are confronted with an uncertain order and profit situation. Thus, they need to allocate their investments purposefully. Evaluating the digital maturity by using a profound indicator system is therefore a sound basis for decision making. This paper develops such a sociotechnical KPI model along the dimensions “Strategy and Organizational Leadership”, “Digital Skills/Human Capital” as well as “Smart Process/Operations”. In the future, this model can be used for determining the digital maturity and thus, it can be applied for allocating digitalization investments.

When aiming for an Industry 4.0 vision, companies are well-advised to not only focus on technology and data. With any digital transformation, the careful consideration of all elements of the company’s “socio-technical triangle” (man, technology, and organization) is a central success factor. Based on a qualitative survey, we identified qualification, organization, and leadership as central dimensions of the work system. Integrative measures include identification of competence requirements, training in data-thinking as well as agile working methods and structures. Finally, leadership plays a central role in orchestrating the digital transformation.