Tracking the maturity of industry 4.0: the perspective of a real scenario

In order to track industry 4.0 status, readiness models can be used to analyze the state of indus-try 4.0 technologies’ implementation allowing the quantification and qualification of its readiness level, focusing on different dimensions. To this matter, there are companies unable to relate the industry 4.0 with their business models, leading to a lack of a correct self-assess in order to understand the reached readiness level. Not all companies are adopting these new technologies with the same ease and with the same pace. Into this purpose, it is important to understand how to assess the industry 4.0’ readiness so far and what are the barriers on the adoption of these enabling technologies by the industry. This paper aims to assess the industry 4.0’ readiness level of companies, understand the perception of companies due to the barriers on the adoption of industry 4.0 enabling technologies and bring new barriers for discussion on academic community. To this end, empirical data was collected on a sample of 15 companies belonging to an important industrial cluster in Portugal.