Evaluation of the influence parameters of Industry 4.0 and their impact on the Quebec manufacturing SMEs: The first findings.

The digitalization of industries is at the heart of today's global economy. However, there seems to be confusion about the most effective methods for initiating this transformation, and even more so for the manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Enterprise (SME). In a context of labor shortages, globalization and access to goods, services and skills everywhere and at any time thanks to the Internet, the need to stand out from the competition becomes a crucial issue. This research attempts to evaluate and identify the most effective ways to facilitate the digitalization in a context of manufacturing SMEs. Thanks to the measure of the digital performance and an 80-hour experience-based methodology using a questionnaire and field interviews, the determining factors of influence of the digital transformation could be raised. This paper uses a model of digital performance and hypothesis testing to try to identify the business practices and the 4.0 technologies that have the greatest effect on the performance of manufacturing SMEs. The results then intents to guide the efforts both in academia and in the field concerning digitalization of SMEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]