The effect of industry 4.0 applications on supply chain performance

Recently, constantly changing and developing technology brings many applications for individuals and businesses. However, integrating these applications into the supply chain and production process may create additional costs as well as create the need for additional labor. Such reasons may affect the decisions of companies in adopting technology. This study aims to test the effect of Industry 4.0 applications on Supply Chain Performance. Another aim of this thesis is to determine whether have a statistically significant difference between factors such as the number of employees, legal structure, and year of activity of companies and the level of use of Industry 4.0 or Supply Chain Performance. For this purpose, a questionnaire was applied to a total of 103 manufacturers. These survey results were analyzed using the SPSS Statistics 22 program. The dimensions were obtained by using factor analysis to the data collected from the companies. These data were then subjected to tests such as Percent-Frequency Analysis, T-Test, Correlation and Regression Analysis, and obtained findings. As a result of the T-Test Analyses, it is found that there is a significant difference between the Cyber-Physical Systems dimension and the year of activity of companies. Furthermore, it is found that there is a significant difference between the number of employees of the companies and the use of Big Data, Cyber-Physical Systems, and Cloud Computing dimensions. Likewise, there is a significant difference between the Cloud Computing dimension and the legal structure of the companies. But it is found that there is no significant difference between the number of employees, year of activity, and legal structure of the participating companies and their Supply Chain Performance. As a result of the Regression Analyses, it is found that there are positive and significant impacts of Artificial Intellegence and Cloud Computing dimensions on the Consumer Performance dimension and Cloud Computing dimension on the Cost Performance dimension. According to the results of the Correlation Analyses, it is found that there is a positive and weak relation between Cloud Computing, Cyber-Physical Systems, Big Data, and Artificial intelligence dimensions and Supply Chain Performance dimensions.