Industry 4.0 enabling manufacturing flexibility: technology contributions to individual resource and shop floor flexibility

Purpose This paper focuses on understanding the contribution of Industry 4.0 technologies to manufacturing flexibility. Design/methodology/approach A multiple-case study was conducted through interviews and complementary data from 12 adopters of Industry 4.0 technologies from the industrial sector. To enable a broad perspective, cases from 5 industry sectors with different technological intensity levels were studied. Findings The findings show that Industry 4.0 technologies are mostly used to improve machine flexibility since there is a major focus on technological approaches rather than on wider flexibility. The results also showed that cloud services, IoT, and data analytics provide the basis for flexible operation, and collaborative robots, ERP/MES/PLM, AGVs, and traceability devices are the most commonly implemented technologies for flexibility. However, inherent contingency factors such as production complexity and product life cycle need to be considered. Originality/value This article expands the research on manufacturing flexibility, considering new capabilities introduced by Industry 4.0.