ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Mech. Eng.
Sec. Digital Manufacturing
Volume 11 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmech.2025.1540287
This article is part of the Research TopicEditor's Challenge in Digital Manufacturing - Digital Transformation of Manufacturing through Industrial Metaverse: Opportunities and Challenges for Industry 5.0View all 4 articles
Designing an E-Smart Manufacturing Readiness Assessment Tool for Automotive Smaller Businesses
Provisionally accepted
Syed Radzi Rahamaddulla1
Shahryar Sorooshian2*Azim Azuan Osman1Ahmad Nazif Noor Kamar1Zulkiflle Leman3- 1Universiti Malaysia Pahang, Gambang, Pahang Darul Makmur, Malaysia
- 2University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
- 3Putra Malaysia University, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
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Today, manufacturing enterprises are facing radical challenges in the new concept of smart manufacturing. While most multinational enterprises have initiated their journey towards adopting smart manufacturing technology, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as the mainspring of many manufacturing economies, are still struggling to understand the complexity offered by smart manufacturing. Many of them are not ready to embrace the concept due to the huge initial investment in technological advancement. Furthermore, failing to assess SMEs' readiness and current capability may obstruct them from achieving their full potential in smart manufacturing. Therefore, this study aims to explore essential criteria that need to be included in the design of a readiness assessment tool for smart manufacturing adoption in automotive SMEs. The study adopted a design and development research method along with the Fuzzy Delphi technique to accomplish the research objectives. A self-administered questionnaire was developed as an instrument to collect the research data. Fifteen experts, consisting of government agency representatives, smart manufacturing practitioners, academia, and SME consultants, participated in this study. Data analysis results revealed that the experts accepted all these criteria, as indicated by an expert consensus value above 75%, a threshold value (d) ≤ 0.2, and a fuzzy score (A) ≥ α-cut value of 0.5. This demonstrates that these criteria have gained expert consensus and are necessary for designing and developing the E-Smart Manufacturing Readiness Assessment Tool for automotive SMEs. This research provides tremendous implications for small and medium automotive manufacturers intending to adopt smart manufacturing in their production facilities, as well as policymakers in designing further policies, aid, and future development strategies to enhance SMEs' business performance.
Keywords: Smart manufacturing, Industrial revolution, Readiness assessment, fuzzy Delphi, Small and Medium Enterprise (SME)
Received: 05 Dec 2024; Accepted: 17 Sep 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Rahamaddulla, Sorooshian, Osman, Kamar and Leman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Shahryar Sorooshian, shahryar.sorooshian@gu.se
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.