Open Access

Tobias Harland, Christian Hocken, Tobias Schröer, Volker Stich

• Data-driven transparency in end-to-end operations in real-time is seen as a key benefit of the fourth industrial revolution. In the context of a factory, it enables fast and precise diagnoses and corrections of deviations and, thus, contributes to the idea of an agile enterprise. Since a factory is a complex socio-technical system, multiple technical, organizational and cultural capabilities need to be established and aligned. In recent studies, the underlying broad accessibility of data and corresponding analytics tools are called “data democratization”. In this study, we examine the status quo of the relevant capabilities for data democratization in the manufacturing industry. (1) and outline the way forward. (2) The insights are based on 259 studies on the digital maturity of factories from multiple industries and regions of the world using the acatech Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index as a framework. For this work, a subset of the data was selected. (3) As a result, the examined factories show a lack of capabilities across all dimensions of the framework (IT systems, resources, organizational structure, culture). (4) Thus, we conclude that the outlined implementation approach needs to comprise the technical backbone for a data pipeline as well as capability building and an organizational transformation.