Technical Articles From McKinsey & Company

Industry 4.0 Capturing value at scale in discrete manufacturing

Jun 02, 2021 | Christoph Schmitz, Andreas Tschiesner, Christian Jansen, Stefan Hallerstede, Florian Garms

With an estimated value creation potential for manufacturers and suppliers of USD 3.7 trillion in 2025,1 high hopes are set on Industry 4.0 to bring the next industrial revolution to discrete manufacturing. Yet, only about 30 percent of companies are capturing value from Industry 4.0 solutions at scale today. Approaches are dominated by envisioning technology development going forward rather than identifying areas of largest impact and tracking it back to Industry 4.0 value drivers. Further governance and organizational anchoring are often unclear. Resulting hurdles related to a lack of clarity regarding business value, limited resources, and an overwhelming number of potential use cases leave the majority of companies stuck in "pilot purgatory."...