During 2022 and 2023, Industry 5.0 attracted a lot of attention. Many articles and papers regarding the basics of Industry 5.0, its pillars, and a comparison of Industry 5.0 and Industry 4.0, Society 5.0, and Operator 5.0 have been published. Although the concept of Industry 5.0 is relatively new, companies from developed countries that have a high level of implementation of Industry 4.0 have already started the transition to Industry 5.0. Even though Industry 5.0 enables developing countries to become a part of developed countries’ value chains, it is not known which path to Industry 5.0 developing countries are taking. To fill this gap, the authors proposed research questions regarding the key indicators for measuring the levels of implementation of Industry 5.0 approaches in the manufacturing sector of the Republic of Serbia. This research includes insights from 146 manufacturing companies, gathered in 2022 as a part of the European Manufacturing Survey. The main findings of this study show that the most important indicator when it comes to human-centricity is training and competence development of production employees with a task-specific focus; the implementation of measures for improving efficiency in material consumption is significant for achieving sustainability; and the use of standardized and detailed work instructions is crucial in order to become resilient.

Value chains are facing different challenges, caused by emerging technologies as well as Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0 principles. In order to successfully deliver valuable products to their customers, firms have to adapt, transform, and continuously improve their operational processes. Digital technologies will enable digital supply chains which will be decentralized and composed of autonomous modules. Although the elements of the value chain are independent, this paper shows how they affect each other’s performance. In this study, a model which shows how human resources management impacts customers’ satisfaction is presented. Additionally, this model reveals direct and indirect relations between human resources management, processes, supply chain actors, and customers. The conducted study was based on the variance-based method, while the model was constructed using the “PLSPM” package in R software. Additionally, the confirmatory factor analysis was applied for assessing the construct constitution. Taking into account that “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, firms can use these findings to seek for performance indicators and problem causes across the whole value chain and not only in one of its elements.