The paper reports research on the implementation of green aspects into the latest industrial revolution called Industry 4.0 and proposes the design of a business readiness level model for Industry 4.0. The analysis is based on the available maturity models for Industry 4.0, which are investigated to determine whether and to what extent they fulfil the ‘green’ trends by their name, content or specialized dimensions. This analysis was initiated over recent years, by a strong interest in integrating the elements and principles of Industry 4.0 into enterprises, together with an increased interest in achieving carbon neutral production and society in the coming decades, including recent EU Green Deal documents. The first part of the paper describes the basic requirements of the Industry 4.0, new digital strategies and green agreements. The major parts of the paper provide an analysis of current maturity and readiness models for Industry 4.0 together with specification, design and development of a readiness model for companies to implement Industry 4.0 with respect to green aspects. The final part of the paper provides an evaluation based on questionnaire survey with discussion, conclusions and avenues for future research.

Production companies are adopting new methods for the improvement of their managing production processes. The cost, quality and time are still key important attributes for process improvement. This is reason why the Business Process Management (BPM) is the core of management in different areas, e.g., quality management, sustainability management. The new technologies based on Internet of Things and Services, SMART solutions, and the concept Industry 4.0 are opening new possibilities of BPM implementation. This theoretical paper deals with a review of new trends in BPM and a presentation of the possibilities of core technologies for Industry 4.0 in phases of BPM applications.

Every new product coming to the market usually brings with a certain amount of doubt concerning the likelihood of its success. In particular, hidden problems and risks which might appear later in the product’s service life could cause producers’ difficulties, costing them a lot of money. This might even result in product phaseout and a consequent loss of the company’s reputation. Hence, it is necessary to manage all product risks. Unfortunately, no comprehensive methodology, managing the entire product life cycle, has been developed so far. This paper presents a new risk management methodology that covers the entire product life cycle. The product life cycle and its management have become a present standard and an important element of the information structure of modern enterprises. A product life cycle comprises several phases; this helps make risk management easier because it is feasible to manage risk for each phase separately. Generally, this phase structure creates a closed and unceasing rotation of risk management tasks and is an important element in universal process improvement. The methodology is focused on prioritizing risks according to the customer’s needs and requirements. It can be applied to a large number of different products and industries.

Dynamic changes and increasing competition in global markets have caused changes in the management of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Due to this fact, many SME companies try to implement different methods for strategy and operation management, quality and improvement management, risk management, etc. But the problem is the efficiency and implementation of these methods in the SME company. One way to achieve higher efficiency is the integration of management methods, meaning the combination of performance management with quality, process and risk management. This approach is also recommended in the ISO standards for quality. It was reflected in a new revision of the ISO 9001 standards in the year 2015. Performance can be described by the financial and non-financial key performance indicators (KPI), covering the cost, quality and time indicators that have been implemented in the balanced scorecard framework (BSC). The aim of this chapter is to present a methodological framework, which leads to the integration of the key performance indicators (KPI) in relation to the key risk indicators (KRI), which may affect the KPIs and overall SME performance. This framework combines a process analysis and modelling with risk and qualitative or quantitative risk assessment techniques. The case study describes its practical implementation and the verification of the designed framework. The results of this research will help to build an effective management system for performance and risk management and quality management for the business processes of SMEs.