Industry 4.0 is one of the primary paradigms of the current industrial context. Despite the widespread research on this topic, an analysis of its key technologies' impact on company performance and resilience is not available. Hence, this work proposes a conceptual model for investigating the influences among Industry 4.0 key technologies (IT-related and Operations-related technologies), organizational resilience (in terms of internal and external) and performances in Italian companies. We distinguished company performance, referring to companies' results in the past, from organizational resilience, which investigates future survival chances. Using structural equation modelling, a second-order construct has been used to test the hypothesized relationships. The results show that the implementation level of Industry 4.0 IT-related key technologies positively impacts organizational resilience and perceived performance. These results can assist company managers and decision-makers in increasing organizational resilience by effectively implementing Industry 4.0 technologies.

Business world has reached a complexity tipping point, increasing the risk of disruption consequences not to remain localised in a single company but to reverberate on the entire Supply Chain. Literature now pays great attention to studying this ripple effect, which can critically undermine resilience of the entire Supply Chain. This work further investigates ripple effect by analysing the presence of cycles among these chain reactions using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps. This methodology allows to link multidimensional and multidisciplinary concepts: by unveiling this information, managers and policymakers are provided with more details about the system behaviour. The research method exemplified uncovers the causal relationships among factors influencing Supply Chain Resilience, providing necessary insight to break or reinforce such connections. A case study of an automotive industry Supply Chain is presented to show the application of the proposed methodology into an operating context: 15 different cycles have been enumerated, explaining how connections among these factors ultimately impact Supply Chain Resilience.

This paper presents an educational approach for teaching Industry 4.0 concepts to maintenance and safety operators involved in industrial processes. A Learning-by-doing approach was introduced to assess the impact of learning by doing and knowledge sharing on designing maintenance and safety solutions based on Industry 4.0 concepts to build experience and improve decision-making skills. To this end, we proposed a pilot course to train industrial operators in the field of new technologies so that they could continue their work effectively. Specifically, the development of the course began with a needs assessment of the perspective participants, followed by an outline of the objectives and course structure. The course was adapted to the different educational and technical backgrounds of the participants (i.e., experienced operators who were digital immigrants and non-experienced operators who were digital natives). The results of the course were assessed through a survey, which allowed us to evaluate the operators’ perception of the learning approach and the contribution to improving the operators’ competencies and abilities. The results highlighted that the educational approach facilitated the teaching of maintenance and safety principles, promoting operators’ attention and participation. The difference in the learning level that we observed between the younger and older operators was also highlighted by the survey results. A dichotomy was revealed between the younger operators, who showed a greater understanding of the explained technologies, and the older operators, who required longer learning times. In this way, both types of participant could benefit from mutual collaboration and teamwork to improve their respective weaknesses.

This work aims at developing a method for analysing the domino effect among concepts affecting Supply Chain Resilience. The proposed method allows connecting concepts at many different levels (e.g. sources of risk, disruptions, supply chain management practices and other aspects). A case study for an electrical appliance supply chain has been used to illustrate the application of the proposed method in an operating context. The proposed method, based on Fuzzy Cognitive Maps, allows the players of the supply chain to evaluate indirect and total causal effect among different concepts affecting the supply chain resilience. The analysis conducted in this study unveiled several paths which form a sequence of concepts towards the top event (i.e. Supply Chain Resilience). The research approach proposed in this work can be applied to different industrial sectors and company managers can identify the capabilities and strategies that can make a firm more resilient and define supply chain design strategies to increase system resilience.

Enterprises of the supply chain are currently embedded in dynamic and turbulent environments, having to deal with the appearance of disruptive events. When an enterprise is affected by a disruptive event, the consequences of the disruption not only impact in the enterprise itself, but also influences on the other partners of the network to which it belongs. Thus, disruptive events exceed the capability of individual actors, impacting on the network performance. Consequently, network partners have to collaboratively make decisions to soften the negative impacts on the performance. In this regard, after a disruption takes place, network enterprises should be aware of activating a set of sustainable and resilience strategies that attenuate the performance loss and reduce the disruption recovery time. Nevertheless, the diverse nature of disruptions means that a wide range of varied and sometimes contradictory strategies can be formulated, resulting in conflict situations among the collaborative network (CN) partners. The current paper proposes an approach that makes it possible to collaboratively manage the strategies to activate when a disruptive event occurs, so that the selected strategies are aligned. The strategies alignment approach, proposed in the paper, makes it possible to select those strategies that have a positive impact, or a minimum negative impact, on the objectives defined, not only in the enterprise itself, but also in the objectives defined by the rest of CN partners. The alignment of strategies makes it possible to reduce the performance level loss when a disruption takes place. Thus, the strategies alignment approach aims at activating those strategies that maximize the performance of the CN, achieving levels of performance equal or higher than the levels previous to the disruption, limiting the adverse effects produced by the disruptive events, and contributing to a more sustainable–resilient CN. Finally, in order to validate the proposal, a case study is presented. The proposed model is validated to deal with a drop in demand due to a political embargo, in a textile CN.