Abstract
The manufacturing sector has undergone number of challenges in the last 30 years. Currently is the industry 4.0. This sector is also facing a challenge to meet the continuously changing needs of consumer worldwide, taking into account that they must adapt to the changes to ensure sustainability. The manufacturing world is moving fast to the development of efficiency means of production and the adoption of new technology. This paper presents the benefits of the motives (sustainability, profits, market share, cost, productivity and competitiveness) of the adoption of industrial 4.0 stages of implementation in manufacturing and review the competitiveness of the Small Medium and Micro-Sized Enterprises (SMMEs). In order to deal with this challenge, manufacturing value creation must be geared in the direction of sustainability. Presently, the manufacturing value creation in the primary industrial states is designed by the expansion towards the industrial 4.0. Although a number of studies have been conducted the past 3 decades to address the gap, but there’s still a need to address. Therefore, this paper aimed at theoretical assess the status-quo of industrial 4.0 in the SMMEs. The results of the critical analysis of the current literature, clearly demonstrate that there are flaws in the body of knowledge. The flaws identified was the lack of use of qualitative method and the practices or adoption of industrial 4.0 in the SMMEs.