Digital Technologies as an Essential Part of Smart Factories and Their Impact on Productivity

Industry 4.0 has led to the emergence of various digital technologies. To keep pace with the digital transformation, manufacturing companies must adapt to the new conditions imposed by the business market and increasingly strive to implement so-called smart factories. This paper points out the most common digital technologies related to the management of manufacturing systems. In addition to identification, a systematic literature review was conducted to investigate their impact on increasing productivity. Results indicate that a significant increase in the number of research began in 2015 and is experiencing its greatest expansion in 2018. Important methodologies observed during the literature analysis are a systematic review of the literature for the largest number of theoretically oriented papers, and case studies, practical models for the minority that make up the practice-oriented papers. Also, 68 percent of papers focus more on the theoretical than on the practical implications, and 72 papers indicate a direct link between productivity and digital technologies used in the digital transformation and implementation of smart factories.