Development of a Suitable Readiness Assessment Framework for Firms and Industrial Parks for the Adoption of the Fundamental Components of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (I4.0) and Investment Development

Over the past years, technological leaps and consecutive innovations in production processes have led to immense and unprecedented changes in the global industrial vista. In this midst, we are witness to the nascence of new concepts such as “industry 4.0,” which have become the topic of increasing focus by researchers. In the present study, existing research work on the models and assessment readiness criteria for the adoption of industry 4.0 are overviewed. The new industrial paradigm resulting from the integration of  technologies that are based on physical cyber systems and digital transformation will radically change both the industry and the economy. Against this significant backdrop, the fundamental industry 4.0 readiness criteria have been identified and a suitable process framework for the readiness assessment of the country’s firms and enterprises is put to the fore. At the outset, all major scientific databases, i.e., Springer, Emerald, Sage, and Science Direct, including 40 scientific papers on readiness assessment and indicators of firms’ maturity level for the adoption of industry 4.0, were considered. Out of these articles, 16 were selected and subsequent to their comparative review, the resulting criteria for the assessment of the readiness and maturity of firms were extracted with a view to their suitability for Iranian firms and industrial parks. To this end a combination of methodologies such as expert panels, the DEMATEL method, and the Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) approach were used to develop the process model, which subsequent to preliminary validation, was detailed in terms of criteria content and applicability to operational environments.