Nevertheless, 85% of the participants within an expert survey rate the relevance of the digitalization of the value chain as important or even as highly important ( 2020) because it will be able to generate a variety of improvement opportunities, as time savings, decreasing susceptibility to errors and failures, physical relief for employees, better service for the end customer, etc. In this regard, a study by Fraunhofer IIS confirmed this view by revealing that only 32% of the participating logistics service providers considered themselves as well developed regarding the maturity for their (transport) logistics processes (Fraunhofer IIS 2017). It should be further noted that in this study, no company would describe itself as a ‘digital champion’ which means that they have advanced knowledge in the field of Industry 4.0 (Wirtschaftskammer Österreich 2019). Moreover, most of the participating SMEs consider themselves as relatively underdeveloped in terms of Industry 4.0-strategies by describing themselves as ‘digitally aware’ or even as ‘digital newcomer’ while only 10% of the participating SMEs classify themselves as ‘digital orientated’. In a recent study, only 33% of SMEs working in an industrial environment reported that they have started to implement Industry 4.0-related initiatives. In this context, a multitude of studies reveals that there still seems to be a missing ‘digital maturity’ regarding the design and implementation of production- and logistics-related processes in SMEs. However, the risks and barriers on the way to a digitalized production and logistics system should not be neglected, especially when it comes to integrating the human being into reshaped work processes of Industry 4.0-aligned organizations (Dallasega et al.
Thereby, a special focus is placed on the continuous development of small- and medium-sized enterprises which are considered as the backbone of the European economy as they are contributing significantly to the local added value (Matt et al. In recent years, scientists and practitioners developed a multitude of technologies and technological concepts based on the vision of Industry 4.0 which was conceptualized as a part of an international strategy to increase the productivity and long-term competitiveness of companies by focusing on principles like digitalization, interconnectivity, and autonomization (Zsifkovits and Woschank 2019 Woschank and Zsifkovits 2021).
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