As supply chains recover from the impact of COVID-19, a sudden acceleration of interest in digitalization and automation is expected, as firms increasingly look towards digital technologies as sources of innovation in the wake of an extreme disruption. The purpose of this study is to utilize the experience of supply chain practitioners, to ascertain the current level of adoption of a number of key Industry 4.0 technologies, understand what preparatory measures are being taken by firms to ensure they are digitally-ready to utilise Industry 4.0 technologies, recognise how and where these technologies are likely impact supply chains, and investigate whether organisational size is a factor in technology adoption. This empirical study utilises primary data from a descriptive survey of supply chain practitioners working across a range of industry sectors and different stages in the supply chain. Whilst the findings from this research indicate that some Industry 4.0 technologies are still in the early stages of adoption, amongst Australian supply chain organisations, they clearly show which technologies are anticipated to have the greatest impact, what sectors that impact will most likely occur in, and which specific improvements they are expected to drive. Larger firms were found to be more digitally-ready than smaller firms, and a number of significant gaps were identified between expected impact and expected investment, meaning little spend is currently projected for certain technologies that are expected to have a significant impact.

随着供应链从COVID-19的影响中恢复过来，随着企业在极端中断之后越来越多地将数字技术视为创新的源泉，人们对数字化和自动化的兴趣会突然增加。这项研究的目的是利用供应链从业者的经验，确定当前采用的一些关键工业4.0技术的水平，了解公司正在采取哪些准备措施，以确保他们可以数字方式使用工业4.0技术，认识到这些技术可能如何以及在何处影响供应链，并调查组织规模是否是采用技术的因素。这项实证研究利用了来自描述性调查的主要数据，该调查是对跨行业领域和供应链不同阶段工作的供应链从业人员的调查。尽管这项研究的结果表明，在澳大利亚供应链组织中，某些工业4.0技术仍处于采用的早期阶段，但它们清楚地表明了预期会对哪些技术产生最大的影响，哪些影响最有可能发生在哪些领域，以及他们有望推动哪些具体改进。发现较大的公司比较小的公司更易于数字化，并且在预期影响和预期投资之间发现了许多重大差距，这意味着目前预计对预计会产生重大影响的某些技术的支出很少。