Analysis of Effective Actions for Consensus Building to Promote Digitalization in Small and Medium-sized Manufacturing Companies

Abstract

In the small- and medium-sized manufacturing industry, a problem is seen as a situation in which the initially expected effects cannot be achieved after the implementation of packaged software. The root cause is assumed to be the fact that the implementation was undertaken without any business transformation due to the lack of consensus building among the parties involved in the implementation process. To examine the root cause in detail, we extracted 35 possible concrete actions for digitalization the part of management and front-line employees, and used factor analysis (covariance structure analysis: path analysis) to clarify whether these actions are effective in forming consensus and achieving the objectives of digitalization.