Digitalisering för svensk tillverkningsindustri: En gapanalys mellan teknikföretags och tillverkningsföretags syn på digitalisering

Abstract

Digitalization is a frequently discussed topic today, since it in many ways will change the way people live by having a profound impact on how society works. It will also undoubtedly revolutionize industries all over the world. In order for Sweden to maintain its competitiveness on an international scene, a big transition towards applying new digital technologies and business models is needed. To assist in this transition this student project was conducted, with the aim of increasing and accelerating the digital development. More specifically, the purpose of the project was to conduct a qualitative study with technology producers and manufacturing companies respectively, comparing their views on what is needed in order for Sweden to become a world leader in digitalization of its manufacturing industries. The work is a contribution to the project Digitala Stambanan (i.e., the National Digital Highway), an ongoing government funded research project. In order to find information and produce a valid result, different methods were used. Initially a literature study was conducted, by retrieving scientific articles and reports from databases such as Google Scholar and Scopus, and also government agencies relevant to our case. After the literature study, interviews with technology producing companies as well as manufacturing companies were held, six in total. This was done in order for the study to gain a deeper understanding of the different parties perspectives on the challenges and opportunities related to digitalizing swedish manufacturing industry. The interview manuscript was created by the project group through a series of workshops. The study showed that there were some important conclusions to be made. First of all there is a need to address the issue of insufficient level of competence within the area of digitalization, especially within AI and cross-discipline functionality. Furthermore the future outlook on digital platforms for sharing information needs to be agreed upon. Today there seems to be a difference in approach between the two parties. The technology producers see opportunities for the entire Swedish industry, compared with the manufacturing companies, who mainly see advantages in their nearest supply chains. A key aspect is also to better understand what is best practice when it comes to structuring an organization for digitalization. There is a distinct difference in how holistic the different perspectives are, however, the gap between the two parties is not very big. The project was completed by six students as part of their bachelor thesis, running from winter 2020 to the end of spring 2020, at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden.