Difficulties faced in application of industry 4.0 and prioritization: Analysis on a medical and road assistance company

Executives that are responsible for bringing together production elements and operating a business while considering profitability and risk, need to act rational when coming to a decision. Especially in the last couple of years with Industry 4.0 and technological advances effecting every aspect of life, individuals and administrators have increasingly been driven to more sophisticated decision-making processes. However, following up on the limited amount of information produced on Industry 4.0 and attempting to integrate the latest developments with existing implementations and work models, can be difficult for the decision makers in companies. The main limiting factor for rational decision making is indeed due to the lack of data. Therefore, determining the difficulties that limit the applications of industry 4.0 and prioritizing the possible solutions for these difficulties, are important for businesses to sustain their success and become competitive assets. Taking the above as a point of departure, this thesis intends to evaluate the difficulties encountered in the follow-up of technological innovations and the issue of prioritization in the context of a medical and road assistance company. The Interpretative Structural Modeling (ISM-Interpretive Structural Modeling) method, which is a Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) technique, is used for the prioritization stage. As a result of the application, the business's difficulties, and the stages to be prioritized, have been highlighted. Considering the findings obtained, the research has the potential to improve the Industry 4.0 applications in today's emerging context, and to contribute to the creation of awareness in the field of Industry 4.0 in our country and to determine the steps to be taken. Furthermore, the criteria and the implemented approach can not only work as a reference for future academic studies, but also for those who are involved in decision making processes pertaining to daily practices.