Digital Manufacturing on a Shoestring - Low-Cost Digital Solutions for Manufacturing SMEs: Priority Solutions Areas

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide an understanding of the priority digital solution areas for manufacturing SMEs. In this study, we examined the digitalisation preferences of 128 SMEs working with a predefined catalogue of 59 digital solution areas. This catalogue of digital solutions has previously been introduced in a companion whitepaper [18]. Out of all participants in the study, 86% ranked one of the top 5 items as a key priority for their business and 98% of respondents ranked one of the top 15 as priority. This contribution can help increase accessibility to digitalisation for manufacturing SMEs by allowing small manufacturers to focus on areas of immediate benefit and solution developers to concentrate efforts in these priority areas.