Investigation on the acceptance of an Industry 4.0 maturity model and improvement possibilities

The interest of companies achieving a high maturity on Industry 4.0 is nowadays increasing more than ever. However, companies are still not using maturity models to define their actual maturity and targeted maturity. A qualitative study deals with the question of why one representative maturity model has a shadowy existence in industry and is not in widespread use to exploit industry 4.0 potentials as estimated. As a result of this qualitative study, insights about necessity and complexity of the model were given. Moreover, improvement possibilities were derived from the study and tested in an example. One of the maturity models index categories, the Big Data’s V for Velocity, was the role model to show an improvement approach. The findings contribute to a better understanding of the users’ needs and show a possible pathway out of the shadow existence for this maturity model.