An Assessment Model of IT Integration in Supply Chain

The fourth revolution of industry started after the announcement of “Industry 4.0” by Germany in Hanover Fair in 2011. Consequently, a blueprint about how this novel revolution could change the world has been popular worldwide, and terms such as “Informatization”, “Wisdom Manufacturing”, “Smart Factory” and “Internet of Things” have also been mentioned repeatedly in different press media. Numerous projects based on the ideas of “Industry 4.0” have been established in the major economies like U.S., China, Japan, and in Taiwan, the “Taiwan Productivity 4.0 Initiative” as an industrial transformation program also started up in September, 2015. According to the research released by Industrial Technology Research Institute of Taiwan, most industrial environments in Taiwan are still immature and staying at an early stage of Productivity 2.0 to 3.0. Insufficiency of flexible manufacturing, automated production and informatization makes many difficulties for Taiwanese industry to develop into the Productivity 4.0. Lots of studies about applications of information technology (IT) and the supply chain in traditional manufacturing have been published abroad, but just a few references in Taiwan. In this thesis, we focused on the preliminary settings, which mainly consisted of the integration between automation and informatization in supply chain, and pointed out the critical role of information technology in launching Industry 4.0 in Taiwan. Finally, we tried to provide an assessment model by comprehensive perspectives and observations for companies in Taiwan to understand their recent status of IT integration in supply chain, which may be an important foundation in developing Industry 4.0-related programs and projects.