Industry 4.0 and sustainable performance: A perspective on Portugal's industry

No previous industrial revolution has demonstrated a significant concern for its potential impact on sustainability to the extent that the current one is doing. Alongside with the goal of achieving a better economic and social output, the fourth industrial revolution should be equally aware of preserving and benefiting the environment. Hence, countries need to accelerate their adoption of new technologies in industrial environments to achieve sustainable development. The aim of the present dissertation is to first analyze the level of adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies on Portuguese manufacturing companies, recurring to a collection of 707 answers obtained from an online survey sent to these companies. Secondly, it is examined the impact that these technologies have on the sustainable performance of the sample companies, by adopting a Triple Bottom Line perspective. The obtained results revealed that the most adopted technologies among the sample were Internet of Everything and Cloud Computing, yet poorly adopted. Cyber-physical Systems; Industrial Robotics; Big Data & Analytics; Simulation and Additive Manufacturing proved to be very poorly implemented on these companies. As for the implications of these on the sustainable performance of the sample, Internet of Everything, Cyber-physical Systems and Cloud Computing showed a positive effect on it, while Industrial Robotics; Big Data & Analytics; Simulation and Additive Manufacturing a negative one.