Industry 4.0 and how purchasing can progress and benefit from the fourth industrial revolution

Abstract

Since its’ announcement in 2011, the number of scientific publications on Industry 4.0 is growing exponentially. Significant investments by industrial firms, at present and planned for the coming years, indicate the expectations by the industry in terms of increased productivity because of the fourth industrial revolution. However, the link between purchasing and Industry 4.0 is largely lacking in scientific literature, despite the high financial impact of procurement for organizations. The fourth industrial revolution – cyber-physical systems with autonomous machine-to-machine communication – could enable several possibilities for purchasing. On the one hand support systems for purchasers are conceived, such as contract analysis software. On the other hand, the scenario of digital negotiations emerges, which could revitalize e- marketplaces. Operative processes can act autonomously, with automated demand identification in cyber-physical systems. In order to support the development of I4.0 strategies in purchasing, this paper further contributes by presenting the result of a project on developing a specific purchasing I4.0 maturity model