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Thursday, 25.04.2024, 03:45
Survey: Quarter of Estonia's industry has digitized its production processes
Food, timber, paper and furniture industries are among those
who have digitized and automated their production processes to the largest
extent with roughly a third of the companies in the sector having digitized
approximately 50% of their production. A fifth of the businesses in the sector
have digitized over 60% of their processes.
Among companies producing basic metals, metal products, and
means of transport, a fourth have digitized at least 40% of their production.
The lowest share of digitization was recorded among businesses involved in the
production of textile, clothing and leather products.
From the perspective of Estonia's economic growth,
digitization of industry is an important and inevitable step, which enables to
enhance commercial processes and thus create higher value added, Inge Laas, manager of strategy and
product development at Enterprise Estonia said.
"Essentially, the digitization of industry, or Industry
4.0, means making better use of technologies and integrating machines into a
comprehensive system with the aim of cutting costs and increasing
revenue," Laas said. "However, all of that should be preceded by data
analysis and diagnostics of management decisions in order to ascertain
bottlenecks, which would otherwise remain undetected. In that aspect, there is
a lot of potential for increased effectiveness among Estonian
businesses."
Laas noted that Enterprise
Estonia seeks to support companies in their technological shift and has for
that purpose launched a series of development marathons and seminars. Since
October 2018, industrial enterprises also have an option to apply for
Enterprise Estonia's support for digital diagnostics.
"There is still room for improvement, but 52% of
Estonia's industrial undertakings have shown interest in starting or proceeding
with digitization of production in the next two years, which serves as good
basis for boosting Estonia's competitiveness," Laas said.
The survey into the digitization of Estonian industrial
companies' production processes was commissioned by Enterprise Estonia and
carried out by pollster Rait Faktum &
Ariko. The survey was conducted in January among 300 businesses all over
Estonia.