READINESS FOR INDUSTRY 4.0 RELATED CHANGES: A CASE STUDY OF THE VISEGRAD FOUR
Industrial revolution refers to a period in human history in which revolutionary scientific discoveries and inventions that affect the functioning of society as a whole take place. Changes resulting from industrial revolutions sooner or later affect all sectors of the economy. The Fourth Industrial Revolution, also known as Industry 4.0, has brought with it many changes. Industry 4.0 has spread rapidly and has become a current phenomenon. Within the theoretical part of the contribution, the authors deal with development, definition, and comparison of industrial revolutions. The aim of the contribution is to examine the readiness of the Visegrad Four countries for changes connected with Industry 4.0. Several national initiatives responding to Industry 4.0 have been launched across Europe in recent years. Their purpose is to regulate the realization of Industry 4.0 and its consequences. Almost every member state of the European Union has its own national initiative, responding to Industry 4.0. Within the practical part of the contribution, authors focused on initiatives responding to Industry 4.0 in the V4 countries. To examine the readiness of the V4 countries for the challenges related to the Fourth Industrial Revolution - Industry 4.0, secondary data - The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) - was used, as well as a z-score calculation. The resulting z-scores show which countries currently achieve the best results in terms of the Drivers of Production values when compared to the GDP per capita. To see how each country is doing compared to the mean value of the respective indicators, z-scores were calculated for each of them.
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