Moveable Production Systems for Sustainable Development and Trade: Limitations, Opportunities and Barriers

Software-Defined Mobile Supply Chains: Rebalancing Resilience and Efficiency in Production Systems

The miniaturization and modularization of production capacity brings with it not only greater agility and efficiency, but also increased flexibility in the form of mobility. This flexibility allows production capacity to be moved when and where it is most needed, generating new business opportunities, e.g., allowing modular units to be rented, leased, or shared. This flexibility, however, requires information and control systems that ensure a correct and secure flow of information between different stakeholders of the supply chain. Based on this, the present article characterizes the concept of software-defined mobile supply chains, presenting its main requirements, opportunities, and limitations. In addition, we present two case studies in which the proposed concept is evaluated in order to demonstrate its applicability. Here, due to the new optimization problems that arise when considering mobile facilities, special interest is given to the planning and control of the required operations, as well as the difficulties associated with the exchange of physical and intellectual assets between different stakeholders.

Managing the Tension between Trust and Confidentiality in Mobile Supply Chains

This research investigates the tension between trust and confidentiality in Mobile Supply Chains (MSCs), where a production asset that is owned by one of the partners is outsourced to another partner of the supply chain for the production of goods, chemicals, or pharmaceuticals. The novelty of the MSC concept is to be found in its innovative and sustainable approach to production and operation processes in supply chains. Implementation of the MSC model could, however, raise trust and confidentiality concerns. The interplay of trust and confidentiality, or preservation of information privacy, between partners plays a central role in the supply chains, particularly because they are genuinely dependent on each other. Qualitative data analysis was used, in which semi-structured interviews with the experts from the chemical and pharmaceutical industries in Germany were conducted to investigate the tension between trust and confidentiality, and important factors affecting it. The results of the study present four different integration scenarios, namely, the low-quality, conservative, grey-box, and innovation scenarios, which consider different levels of trust, confidentiality and information sharing. Subsequently, the tension between trust and confidentiality is analyzed within these scenarios, and three effective strategies which encourage partners to balance the tension between trust and confidentiality are proposed. The study indicates that the balance between trust and confidentiality can be maintained in some scenarios when critical factors such as transparency, trust negotiation, and a reward-sharing system are present.

Impact of Resources on the Development of Local Entrepreneurship in Industry 4.0

The development of Industry 4.0 has a significant impact not only on production processes but also on the functioning and future of regions. It is crucial to understand the phenomena taking place in the social and economic space both from the cognitive and practical point of view. The article is based on research which investigates the prospect of communes in the context of Industry 4.0 development. The aim of the article is to show possible consequences of the development of Industry 4.0 from the local perspective. The basic assumption is a positive impact of entrepreneurship on ensuring sustainable regional development. The model adopted is built on a resource-based view and includes both invariable, external and independent resources such as location, as well as those which are variable in the longer term, such as human and social capital. To verify most of the hypotheses, a linear regression model has been created. The results of the research show that there is a strong correlation between human capital, social capital, proximity of an agglomeration and tourist attractiveness of a region, and regional development operationalised by the number of enterprises. The article presents possible directions of changes in the profiles of local units, as well as the conditions which have to be met in order to enable such a transformation.

Classification of Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises Based on the Level of Industry 4.0 Implementation

Due to Industry 4.0 technologies, small- and medium-sized enterprises have a great opportunity to increase their competitiveness. However, the question remains as to whether they are truly able to implement such modern technologies faster and carry out digital transformation. The main aim of the paper is to classify small- and medium-sized enterprises into various groups, according to the level of implementation of Industry 4.0, using the Index of Industry 4.0. Based on the results of the cluster analysis, the small and medium enterprises are categorized into four different groups, according to the level of implementation of Industry 4.0. There are top Industry 4.0 technological enterprises, I4 start enterprises, noobs enterprises, and I4 advances enterprises. So far, the largest group consists of the small- and medium-sized enterprises that are just starting out with the introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies, such as IT infrastructure, digitalization (data, cloud, data analysis, and information systems), and sensors. On the other hand, the top I4 technological enterprises group is the least numerous. The analysis carried out comparing the small- and medium-sized enterprises with the large enterprises shows that the SMEs still have a lower level of Industry 4.0 implementation. This confirms the assumption that the large enterprises have greater opportunities to use new technologies and transform them into smart factories. However, this situation may change in the future if new technologies become more accessible, and SMEs are worth investing in Industry 4.0 in terms of the return on investment.