Assessing the Outcomes of Digital Transformation Smartization Projects in Industrial Enterprises: A Model for Enabling Sustainability

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

General comments:

It takes much work to read and many pages. The authors should reduce the number of pages to make using the knowledge presented in the paper more interesting.

Detaille comments:

- Abstract:

Authors should improve the writing of their abstract by taking into account the following order:

- Short background: I suggest authors use the introduction section paragraph from 73 to 77 lines: "Digital transformation and smartization projects in industrial enterprises have become increasingly…". It is much better than the current lines in the abstract.

- Objective. It is divided into two parts. It must be one: 

o "The purpose of the study is to develop and test a model for…" and "The authors also proposed a mechanism for identifying the..." Are there two objectives? Maybe the first is part of the methodology? Please check and correct.

- Methodology: It is not written in the abstract. It is in the introduction section.

- Results: authors must write the main results achieved, a super synthetic version of section 3.

- Conclusion: Although the authors write some conclusions in the abstract). It is important to re-organize them and write much better (as a main conclusion) at the final of the abstract.

- Introduction:

I suggest reducing some irrelevant paragraphs and compacting them with two or three relevant paragraphs. In this section, the authors must describe a DTSP in detail.

- Materials and method

I suggest that the authors separate the methodology section from the development section. Most of the content of this section corresponds to a new section of the research development.

The section is content very relevant; however, it is so heavy to read, and consequently, readers can lose interest in replicating the research.

- Results

This section is also huge, and it is easy to lose the idea when the reader constantly returns to previous paragraphs. I suggest the authors rewrite the section separating paragraphs describing the accurate results method. This section also presents conclusions, which must be in the "discussion and conclusion" section.

- Discusión and conclusions

I suggest improving the writing way.

The way authors write is, most of the time, redundant. Authors must improve the text by reducing the number of words to say the same in every paragraph.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, many thanks for your work and your time, as well as for the comments, which we hope have allowed us to improve the handwriting.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper's aim is to develop and test a model for diagnosing the results of the implementation of smartization projects for industrial enterprises.

Furthermore, the definition of smartization given on page 2 is very broad and neither the definition nor the indicators in table 1 give any concrete operationalization of smartization 

Relatedly, what are the target objects of smartization (p. 10)?

How are the components in graph 3 related to the model in table 1 (as this graph is meant, as it says in the subtitle of the graph, to serve as a diagnosis of the results of the implementation of the model)?

The overall relationship of the results to sustainability (in the title) is not clear. As it is now, the paper seems to be interested in increasing smart technology implementation and evaluating their impact on various management processes. Where does sustainability come in? With regard to the link between smartization and sustainability, the discussion needs to be anchored in existing literature

The authors should mention the program used for doing the calculations and building the graphs (they hint at automatically built graphs on page 8, but do not mention the program or method employed). 

No new methods and models should be proposed in the results section but in a prior section

Parts of Figure 4 are not readable

 

 

 

 

Table 1 could be improved in readability so as to clarify that there are two columns with the same information (management objectives, object markers, indicator desgination) so that the reader does not read it line-wise

none

Author Response

Dear reviewer, many thanks for your work and your time, as well as for the comments, which we hope have allowed us to improve the handwriting.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

(01) In the abstract (20-21), it mentions a survey, but the first paragraph only mentions a model. It would be important to have a transition from the model to the survey.

(02) from 38 to 62, there is only a reference. This first beginning deserves a strong reference to support first statements.

(03) The same for 73 to 75 - important statement without a reference.

Thank you for the opportunity of reviewing this article. The proposal here is audacious. Assessing itself benefits the academy, and including a model for enabling sustainability is even more daring. I liked it very much when you mentioned the "riskiness of society." This is a topic I've been researching when talking about modern technologies.

The thing is, and it can make the article acceptance complicated: References are minimal. This article contains 37 pages and only 26 references. I am not saying the number of references is relevant, but a reference only supports a few strong statements.

The article directly jumps from a short introduction to "Materials and Methods." From this point, it jumps directly to a quick "Discussions and conclusions." 

The question is: Why the methodology, hypothesis, and even a literature review are not covered?

This article is very beneficial, but the pages covering the materials and methods need a solid foundation.

This article needs to be improved. It requires strong foundations and references behind the arguments and the model itself.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, many thanks for your work and your time, as well as for the comments, which we hope have allowed us to improve the handwriting.

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The article improved a lot. However, it is too long. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for incorporating the suggested changes, the paper in my point of view is much improved in clarity and content and provides new insights 

Reviewer 3 Report

Thank you for meeting the proposed suggestions.