Industry 4.0 and the Global Digitalised Production. Structural Changes in Manufacturing

The globalization process and the new digitalized production have rapidly changed the structural organizational models of major economies. To avoid the commoditization trap, globalization and price-advantage erosion, manufacturing industries are moving fast from mass to customized productions. They have servitized business operations, taking advantages of the new emerging and digitized technologies within the scenario of Industry 4.0 (I4.0). This paper recalls the most significant debate on the new industrial paradigm, and investigates its impact on the manufacturing sector, focusing on Italian SMEs. It evaluates the effects on labour division, organizational models of production (agents-machines-organization), the “new” power structure, and the economy as a whole. It investigates the effects of technology on the labour market and organizational models with respect to SMEs and networks, concluding that I4.0 could be an effective driving force for networking SMEs, despite the reduction of employees in manufacturing is likely to continue.