INTERNATIONAL ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY MANAGEMENT SUMMIT 2021, İstanbul, Türkiye, 16 - 17 Eylül 2021, ss.48-55
The term ‘Industry 4.0’ was introduced in 2011 during the Hannover Fair in Germany. Industry 4.0 is based
on cyber-physical systems aims to unify the physical and digital worlds of production. With Industry 4.0,
value chains, products and services are digitized and integrated. Kagermann et. al (2013) stated that the
environment will become more dynamic and unpredictable, and to protect their competitive advantage,
companies will need new approaches. Industry 4.0 applications have many practical and theoretical
benefits, but, it is still unclear exactly what the challenges and opportunities to the companies face. SMEs
have different characteristics from larger companies, and therefore they need different Industry 4.0
transformation roadmaps. Industry 4.0 provides new paradigms for the industrial management of SMEs.
Moeuf et al. (2018) also expressed that, the introduction of new technologies and practices always have
risks for SMEs and the real requirements and benefits for SMEs are still not fully known.
SWOT analysis is a technique to identify the internal strengths and weaknesses and external opportunities
and threats. Naryanan and Natch (1993) emphasized that SWOT analysis is an important analysis method
that helps managers to analyze the current situation and future potential of the organization. This paper
mainly focuses on the usage of SWOT analysis to identify the internal and external impacts of Industry 4.0
in four categories (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). The purpose of this study is to
examine Industry 4.0 transformation of SMEs located in Aegean Region in Turkey, using SWOT analysis
to conduct their awareness, activities and current situation within strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats in the journey of Industry 4.0 transformation. Detailed analysis of strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of Industry 4.0 transformation of SMEs will support to formulate appropriate
strategies during the journey of Industry 4.0 transformation of SMEs. In this study, interview method was
used to analyze the SMEs’ Industry 4.0 transformation. Interviews were conducted with 5 SMEs. The
results of the interviews were evaluated by SWOT analyze and revealed strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats of the SMEs in the extent of Industry 4.0 transformation.