Industry 4.0: An empirical analysis of its adoption in Wallonia

This paper studies the factors influencing the adoption of digital technologies in the manufacturing sector; the so called Industry 4.0 phenomenon. We focus on the adoption of three particular technologies (Predictive Maintenance, Smart Production and Advanced Planning) in the Belgian region of Wallonia. In line with the claims of related qualitative studies, our findings suggest that smaller firms, which have a more restricted access to financial resources, are less prone to adopt these technologies. Our results are compatible with the notion that more digitally mature firms are more prone to... Mehr ...