Implementation of an Industry 4.0 Strategy Adapted to Manufacturing SMEs: Simulation and Case Study
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsPaper Title: Implementation of an Industry 4.0 Strategy Adapted to Manufacturing SMEs: Simulation and Case Study
The present paper deals with the major challenge of digital transformation in Quebec's small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The authors provide an adaptive Industry 4.0 implementation strategy based on agility and modular product design for manufacturing SMEs using a case study with a simulation-based experimental design. They proposed that SMEs must prioritize the implementation of lean and agility as prerequisites to ensure the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 and advanced technologies. They also provide the impact of modular design, lean tools, agility, and cloud solutions.
General comments:
1) Please refer to line 72: “Nita [10], Robivec [11], Métalus [12], and Robovic. Robivec is repeated may be removed, or a reference may be added.
2) Please refer to line 109: "Internet of Things"... should be "Internet of Things (IoT)..." Later on, IoT may be used in-line no.135.
3) Several references are wrongly quoted, for instance, line 115. “Gamache, Abdul-Nour [3]” should be Gamache et al. (2020) or quote all three authors. Please check others as well.
4) Gamache, S., Abdul-Nour, G. and Baril, C., 2020. Evaluation of the influence parameters of Industry 4.0 and their impact on the Quebec manufacturing SMEs: The first findings. Cogent Engineering, 7(1), p.1771818.
5) Please refer to lines 149-150, "The literature review begins by highlighting the importance of Industry 4.0 in the transition to personalized mass production." “The literature review begins ….” looks disjoint here under section 2.4 of the literature review.
6) Please refer to lines 289-291: “The bottleneck was in project design and drawing. Covid-19 led to supply difficulties and increasingly long delivery times, making it more and more difficult to deliver projects on time.” Looks illogical here, several outsourcers exist for design and drawing completion except for critical and monopoly products. Further, Covid-19 no longer persists in any part of the world.
7) Some of the abbreviations like RFID, ERP, MES, KPIs, BOM, CONWIP, 5S, TRG ...etc. may be expanded for clarity.
8) As per Table 3. Taguchi L16 experimental design results in several projects delivered. The minimum number of projects is 61.2 (By not adopting, A, B, C, D, E) and the maximum is 81.2. (By adopting, A, B, D, E). The experiments don’t include all available strategies i.e. (A, B, C, D, E).
9) Further, the strategies considering various (A, B, C, D, E) variables should also be assessed for feasibility in terms of cost-benefit ratio for forecasting the average number of projects to deliver.
10) Simulating the strategies for several projects delivered must have the assumption and limitations for its feasible implementation, for further insight.
11) Please refer to "The company’s implementation of each step led to the following gains: " under the subsection of 5.1 Company Case Analysis.
12) How the documented gains are generalized.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe manuscript has several typos and grammatical mistakes, hence careful editing is needed.
1) Please refer to line 85: “…SCOPUS search engine…” should be “…Scopus search engine…”
2) Please refer to line 154: “Lucía [22] define agility as a production model….” should be “Lucía [22] defines agility as a production model………”
3) “Lean”, “Agility” “Modular Design’ may be changed to lowercase…throughout the manuscript. Please check for other jargon.
4) Please refer to line 212: “…including tools and practices such as Lean and Agility..” should be “…..including tools and practices such as lean and agility..”
5) Please refer to line 258: “Those two cases highlight that this strategy seem more…” should be “Those two cases highlight that this strategy seems more…”
6) Please refer to line 418: “…the first variable consists in assessing...” should be “…the first variable consists of assessing..”
7) Please refer to line 418: “…electrical panel is assembled in parallel to the production.” Should be “…electrical panel is assembled in parallel with the production.”
8) Figure 4 shows the visual representation of the simulation in SIMIO. Should be “Figure 4 shows the visual representation of the simulation in Simio.”
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate the detailed feedback you have provided on our manuscript. Your insights have been instrumental in refining our work.
Please find a document that addresses each of your comments and suggestions in a point-by-point fashion. In this document, we have made the necessary revisions and provided justifications for the aspects that remain unchanged.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to enhancing the quality of our research.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe article per se was interesting and pertinent; however, to make it publishable, there are some issues that have to be resolved first. Please see the attachment.
Comments for author File: Comments.pdf
The English language needs to be streamlined considerably, and there are lots of typos and grammatical errors.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate the detailed feedback you have provided on our manuscript. Your insights have been instrumental in refining our work.
Please find a document that addresses each of your comments and suggestions in a point-by-point fashion. In this document, we have made the necessary revisions and provided justifications for the aspects that remain unchanged.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to enhancing the quality of our research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThis interesting study aimed to present an adaptive Industry 4.0 implementation strategy, based on agility and modular product design, for manufacturing SMEs. The authors presented the development of such a strategy for manufacturing SMEs. A case study was in the form of action research, combined with a simulation-based experimental design in a Quebec manufacturing SME, served to validate the implementation of an adapted strategy.
The study's aim was to explore the idea that SMEs must prioritize the implementation of Lean and agility as prerequisites to ensure the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 and advanced technologies.
The present study tried to explore to determine which factors from Industry 4.0 have a significant impact on the successful implementation of it in small and medium-sized enterprises.
To collect data and create a case study, the authors used a literature survey, and data from the selected company. It was a small metal fabricator with around 50 employees located in central Quebec.
The measurements and instruments used by the authors seem to be valid.
The results are processed in detail, with statistical and graphical confirmation or refutation of established assumptions. The result of this research reinforces the idea that SMEs must prioritize the implementation of Lean and agility as prerequisites to ensure the successful implementation of Industry 4.0 and advanced technologies.
The discussion is a reasonable extent and includes the essential findings of the study. The discussion also compares the authors’ arguments with similar research.
Limiting criteria are missing from the paper. Supplementing the limited criteria will increase the quality and the informative value of the study.
The paper I evaluate positively due to the is part of a series that aims to adapt an Industry 4.0 implementation strategy for SMEs based on the concepts of Lean, agility, and modular design. The conclusion of the paper reinforces the idea that each company needs to be assessed individually to successfully adapt the Industry 4.0 implementation strategy to its specific needs, which was supported and succeeded in this case study. It is needed further research adapting tools and projects using the same strategy approach in other fields of activity is needed to generalize a strategy adaptation approach to a wider field.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate the detailed feedback you have provided on our manuscript. Your insights have been instrumental in refining our work.
Please find a document that addresses each of your comments and suggestions in a point-by-point fashion. In this document, we have made the necessary revisions and provided justifications for the aspects that remain unchanged.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to enhancing the quality of our research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThank you for the modified version. Most of the comments have been implemented, however, the following points may further be considered:
(a) Taguchi experiments selection depends upon the number of parameters and levels, hence "To meet the needs of the study, an orthogonal Taguchi L16 experiments design was chosen..." The author may include parameters and levels for better clarity.
(b) Some capitalization could have been avoided, for instance, Table 3 TAGUCHI plan column could be Taguchi plan column
(c) It is very difficult to read the manuscript in the present state, authors may provide a clean copy.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe suggested corrections look implemented, but are difficult to verify in the present state of the manuscript. A clean copy may be provided.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate the detailed feedback you have provided. Your insights have been instrumental in refining our work.
Enclosed, please find a document that addresses each of your comments and suggestions in a point-by-point fashion. In this document, we have made the necessary revisions and provided justifications for the aspects that remain unchanged.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to enhancing the quality of our research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThanks for the author's effort on the content enhancement. Still, I think there was little writing and explanation in the section research gaps, maybe 7 lines, and still no research hypotheses were formulated. Furthermore, I think the structure and clarification of the article are somehow ambigous.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe style of language was fine.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer,
We sincerely appreciate the detailed feedback you have provided. Your insights have been instrumental in refining our work.
Enclosed, please find a document that addresses each of your comments and suggestions in a point-by-point fashion. In this document, we have made the necessary revisions and provided justifications for the aspects that remain unchanged.
Thank you for your valuable contribution to enhancing the quality of our research.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
