Strategic decision making in the dijital transformation process: efficiency improvement with ERP in the automotive industry

Today, businesses, regardless of the sector are in constant competition with other businesses in the sector. These competition conditions are increasing day by day with the developing technology. In this direction, in order for the business to remain in the sector, it is necessary to keep up with technology by controlling product cost, increasing productivity and quality. Thanks to Industry 4.0, a more dynamic production area, more efficient production, better quality and less costly products are obtained with the applications that enter our lives. Industry 4.0 is the revolution that brings technologies and value chain structures together. The elements that make up Industry 4.0 are the internet of things, big data, cyber physical systems, three-dimensional printers, autonomous systems and robots, cloud operations, system integration, augmented reality. The production processes created with Industry 4.0 are based on connecting systems to networks through different interfaces and interacting with services. The communication and interaction between the means of production is realized through internet-based systems. These structures created by objects communicating with each other are called the internet of things. Big data is not only about data access or storage. Big data also analyzes data to understand and use this stored data. At the same time, there must be a structure that brings the physical and virtual world together in order to obtain, store and use all data. This is called cyber-physical systems. In this study, the root causes of the identified problems were initially analyzed using one of the problem-solving techniques, the fishbone diagram. As a corrective action, Industry 4.0 technologies were utilized to address these causes. Through the integration of these technologies and improvements implemented in the production process, data were collected from both production resources and operators, enabling real-time monitoring of production status and performance. During the digital system selection phase, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was employed to prioritize decision criteria, followed by the TOPSIS method to evaluate alternative solutions and determine the most suitable system. This ensured that the decision-making process was structured on an analytical and measurable basis, rather than solely on intuition or experience. The combined use of Industry 4.0 principles and the internet of things allowed for intelligent devices within the production environment to minimize human error, enhance product traceability, and provide accurate and real-time data to decision-makers. As a result of the digital transformation efforts, a 12.86% improvement in OEE was achieved, and real-time traceability in terms of raw materials, products, and production processes was established.