Methodology for Assessing, Evaluating and Selecting an Integration and Migration Strategy for Industry 4.0 in SME

The paper at hand presents a methodology to assess, evaluate and select a package of measures that represents an appropriate integration and migration strategy for the implementation of Industry 4.0 tools. The methodology is based on a developed interaction and restriction matrix which improves the decision support process of small and medium sized enterprises (SME). The comparison of different strategies is assisted by a software tool. This structured decision process reduces the risk of misinvestment, enhances the competitiveness and raises the Industry 4.0 maturity level of SME. For a broad application area, the methodology was applied and validated in several SME.