Assessing challenges for implementing Industry 4.0: Implications for process safety and environmental protection

Researchers and practitioners are giving significant attention to Industry 4.0 due to its numerous benefits to manufacturing organizations. Several aspects of Industry 4.0 have been studied in the literature. However, studies on the challenges for implementing Industry 4.0 in manufacturing operations have received less attention. To address this gap, this study identifies a set of challenges (framework) for implementing Industry 4.0 in manufacturing industries. This framework is evaluated in the leather industry of Bangladesh aided by a novel multi-criteria decision-making method named Best-Worst method (BWM). The findings of the study showed that 'lack of technological infrastructure' is the most pressing challenge that may hurdle the implementation of Industry 4.0 whereas 'environmental side-effects' is the less among the challenges that may hinder implementation of Industry 4.0 in the Bangladeshi leather industry. This result may help decision makers, industrial managers and practitioners in the Bangladeshi leather industry to realize the actual challenges confronting them when attempting to implement Industry 4.0 and focus their attention on how to address these challenges to pave ways for a successful implementation of Industry 4.0.