Digital Transformation of the Natural Stone Sector
Digital Transformation of the Natural Stone Sector
Purpose
The CTCV – Technological Centre of Ceramic and Glass, in cooperation with Assimagra – Portuguese Association of Marbles, Granites and Related Branches have been developing a project called “The Stone4.0 Age – a Digital Transformation of the Stone Sector”, whose objective is to support SME in the incorporation of industry 4.0 concepts and practices, empowering companies and providing digital tools that are adjustable to the reality of each organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The project began with a benchmarking study on the use of digital tools among companies in the sector, analyzing their applicability and scalability, covering extractive, transformation and trading companies. The benchmarking was supported by a questionnaire to diagnose the state of maturity of companies in the natural stone sector towards the challenges of industry 4.0 and digitalization and, in this way, to better understand their reality and needs.
Findings
This case of study concludes that companies recognize the added value of digital tools as vehicles that facilitate access to information in real time and data processing. However, its use still has gaps.
Customizable digital tools were developed, in the form of guides, to respond to the requirements of continuous improvement of the global efficiency of processes to create value, optimize their potential and drive companies towards the digital use of documentation.
Research limitations
The representativeness of the sample is small, given the size of the sector.
Paper Type: Case of Study.
Digital Transformation, Benchmarking, Digital Tools, Natural stone.
