Conference Agenda

The Digital Transformation demands constant societal updating, accompanied by technological evolution to develop new projects, products, and services. Organisations, aware of the need to adapt to these changes, seek to understand emerging technologies' meanings, concepts, and premises. However, this process is challenging, given the complexity of reconciling the external environment with the internal conditions of organisations and understanding, assimilating, and adopting innovations. Studies and scientific papers have addressed technical issues and explored critical success factors, barriers, limitations, and restrictions, proposing tools, models, frameworks, and methodologies to overcome the organisational gaps. However, the lack of a direct connection between technologies and people's skills and capabilities can hinder the digital transformation journey in organisations. In this context, this paper proposes a multi-criteria approach to correlating the evaluation criteria of Industry X.0 enabling technologies with human resources skills in the organisational environment. This research is applied to a Brazilian Electronics Manufacturing Industry case using the AHP method and TOPSIS Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM). The findings show the possibility of a technical/social correlation, which can help managers better allocate internal resources according to the digital transformation technologies to be implemented in their products.

Digital Transformation (DT) represents a transformative phenomenon redefining how companies operate, interact with their customers and handle business. DT can lead to changes in work, with the introduction of new functions and the replacement of some traditional occupations. This scenario requires workers to acquire new skills and be able to adapt quickly to the new demands of the labour market. Therefore, understanding the impacts of digitalisation on workers' cognitive load is necessary for companies to maximise the benefits of DT. In this context, the main objective of this research was to utilise structural equation modelling (SEM) to explore complex relationships among constructs and their corresponding indicators in DT and human factors' impacts on business management processes. The research investigates the influences and correlations within four key domains: digital transformation, human factors, business process management, and emerging technologies. A systematic literature review was carried out, thoroughly examining scientific articles in the Scopus and Web of Science databases. This process yielded the identification and selection of 15 pertinent articles that align with the specific scope of our investigation. From these chosen articles, we extracted relevant criteria associated with each of the targeted constructs—namely, digital transformation, human factors, business process management, and technology. This extraction process determines key elements that would be used as foundational building blocks for the Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). This process stage relates to formulating hypotheses regarding relationships between four variables. Experts were surveyed to assess the formulated hypotheses and analyse the results.

Although widely adopted around the globe, emerging evidence suggests that digitalization investments often underperform. One potential reason is that firms lack organizational readiness to adopt these new technologies. Thus, in this paper, we evaluate both digitalization implementation and digital readiness in the Brazilian auto industry to ascertain how readiness potentially impacts the implementation of new digital technologies and processes. In reviewing the literature on digital transformation in the global automotive sector, a lack of studies was identified on the level of readiness and maturity of the automotive sector in relation to digitalization and innovation brought out by the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. To address this gap, a digitalization protocol was drawn up with the aim of verifying the maturity of companies and understanding the degree of readiness for digital transformation. Subsequently, the research was applied to thirteen companies in the automotive sector, including vehicle and engine manufacturers, as well as automotive parts and systems subcontractors in the automotive supply chain. The contribution of this paper identified that the use of digital technologies increases the quality and results of work, facilitates the achievement of objectives, and offers a competitive advantage. Further’ advantages come from improving customer experience, increasing innovation through data analysis, improving manufacturing processes, and bringing greater employee engagement. Finally, it is highlighted that this study is aligned with the ninth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) proposed by the United Nations: Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure, which seeks to promote inclusive and sustainable industrialization and foster innovation.

Digital technologies have the potential to improve processes, increase productivity, and materialise new benefits. Despite these benefits, heavily regulated sectors such as the energy sector, characterised by conservatism and a low appetite for risk, encounter obstacles hindering their adoption. This is significant. If digital technologies could be more extensively used in these sectors it might realise considerable economic, environmental, and societal value. Within this paper we present a case study of the Connected Infrastructure project – a successful digital technology project which was conducted by the UK’s Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA). We conduct a workshop with key project stakeholders and use this to identify and rank barriers to digitalisation within the nuclear sector. These barriers are used to structure a discussion to elicit enablers – factors considered to have contributed to the successful implementation of the project. Through thematic analysis ten enabler themes are identified. These are mapped to the transdisciplinary hierarchical system proposed in the seminal work of Jantsch. The results show that both barriers and enablers are multidimensional encompassing three levels of the hierarchy (purposive, normative, and pragmatic). No enablers are found to map to the empirical (fundamental science) level. The conclusions emphasise the significant impact of multilevel coordination, which is a distinguishing factor of transdisciplinary approaches and suggest creating a repository of successful technology implementation projects, in relatable contexts, as a practical strategy for improving adoption rates. Future work will look to create and validate guidelines for enabling digital technology uptake in the nuclear sector.