Identifying Production Improvement Opportunities Enabled by Digital Innovation: The Digital Factory Mapping Approach

Manufacturing companies are increasingly engaging in digital transformation initiatives with the intent to improve the performance of their production operations. Nevertheless, a common challenge lies in understanding where to focus to obtain a significant production improvement, as well as in quantifying such potential. This research, structured according to the Design Science Research framework, proposes and demonstrates a novel tool – the Digital Factory Mapping – to address these issues. This analytic tool has been built on top of previous research efforts that shared the same intention, linking the continuous improvement philosophy with the digital maturity concept. The tool has been applied to four small- and medium-sized Danish manufacturers, validating its capability in facilitating the identification of company-specific production improvement opportunities, the formulation of digital innovation initiatives to capture them and the quantification of their potential. This paper contributes to the operations management body of knowledge by answering the need for frameworks to tangibly support the digital transformation process. From a managerial perspective, the feedback obtained by the four test cases highlighted how the tool generates an internal awareness concerning production improvement needs and digital innovation opportunities, catalyzing the execution of the suggested digital innovation initiatives by providing a quantification of their potential impact.