Industry 4.0 Maturity Model Assessing Environmental Attributes of Manufacturing Company

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The publication concerns a model for assessing environmental attributes of manufacturing company. The subject is interesting, important and up-to-date.

However, the authors did not avoid mistakes, which are presented below:

• The abstract contains information about the structure of the paper. It seems unnecessary. The abstract is supposed to encourage the reader to get acquainted with the publication so it should describe its most important achievements. The information: "The final part of the article summarizes the work and presents future possibilities" has no meaning for the reader, it does not talk about the content but the structure.
• Another element that affects the reception of the work is the placement of the objective at the end of chapter 3 " Materials and methods". I suggest reading the journal's instructions for authors: “The introduction should briefly place the study in a broad context and highlight why it is important. It should define the purpose of the work and its significance. The current state of the research field should be carefully reviewed and key publications cited. Please highlight controversial and diverging hypotheses when necessary. Finally, briefly mention the main aim of the work and highlight the principal conclusions.”
• Another thing that should be improved is that the authors do not stick to a specific nomenclature. For example: in chapter 3 "3 main phases working with the main parameters for determining the model" are described. They are enumerated and then the names of these phases are different in the text. This creates an impression of lack of order.
• I propose to insert the questionnaires presented in tables 3-6 as an appendix. The authors themselves have indicated that this is only an example.
• Table 1 is difficult to read.
• "Figure 1. Maturity model - environmental aspects current situation." - numbering error. This is another figure. The earlier one is described inconsistently with the format.
• Enumeration do not include punctuation.

Additionally:

The authors indicated, "The results from the state-of-the art review clearly show (which is also summarized in Table 1) that models for maturity of companies for Industry 4.0 do not include environ-mental aspects of production (...)". Please refer to the following publication:

Shukla, G.P. and Adil, G.K. (2021), "A conceptual four-stage maturity model of a firm's green manufacturing technology alternatives and performance measures", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-09-2020-0368

I understand that the assessment of a company's maturity may not include the concept of Industry 4.0. Therefore, I wonder whether the review should not consider the issue more broadly, based also on more general assessment models.

In conclusion, the article is interesting and fits in with the theme of the journal. However, it still needs tidying up before publication.

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

First of all, thank you very much for your comments and valuable input to our article. We tried to implement all your feedback into our article and I am sending the revised version now. 

1. 1. The abstract contains information about the structure of the paper. It seems unnecessary.  - The abstract was rewritten, unnecessary was deleted
   2. Another element that affects the reception of the work is the placement of the objective at the end of chapter 3 " Materials and methods".  - This section was also rewritten and edited according to your comments
   3. Another thing that should be improved is that the authors do not stick to a specific nomenclature. - point were edited
   4. I propose to insert the questionnaires presented in tables 3-6 as an appendix.  - done
   5. Table 1 is difficult to read. - edited
   6. "Figure 1. Maturity model - environmental aspects current situation." - numbering error. This is another figure. The earlier one is described inconsistently with the format.  - edited
   7. Enumeration do not include punctuation  - edited

   Additionally:

   The authors indicated, "The results from the state-of-the art review clearly show - publication properly cited

    

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

The paper is very interesting to read and to see findings. But to be even better I do believe that these questions and comments can help.

p. 8 - is there a particular reason you divided levels in 10, 20, 30, 20, 20?

p.8 - table 2 - a bit of formating needed

p.10 -  VSM is used everywhere so maybe putting e.g. in brackets would be to clarify that is used in among other things also in production and logistics and not only there

p. 11/12 - why is Level 0 and level 5 the same in the table 4

p14 - Table 7 - standardize the use of either Level or L

p 15 - why is here level 5 for lubricants different in relation to the level 5 in table on p11/12

p 20 - based on what you state that the use of VSM in marginal in maintenance? References, data!!! If you put this in google search you will find many papers about this topic so maybe ....

p. 23 - you state that the case study is one company but then in results you state companies - so one or more companies in research? 

P. 23. Logistics dimension 6.2. - how many interviews you conducted, how many companies you visited - this needs to be elaborated and stated.

in results, you somewhere state company, somewhere companies so again which results you present - case study of visits (how many) and structured interviews (How many)

maybe in conclusion do not repeat the things you already stated previously about the number of models, ....

Please do not use bulletpoints in conclusion

The conclusion is mainly repeating and I do believe that it needs to be stronger by putting more about what you did and what you found and less repeating introduction into the paper.A
Also based on your work what do you propose for further research or further steps in applying you model - maybe to test it somewhere?

Author Response

Dear reviewer, 

First of all, thank you very much for your comments and valuable input to our article. We tried to implement all your feedback into our article and I am sending the revised version now. 

1. 1. 8 - is there a particular reason you divided levels in 10, 20, 30, 20, 20? - this is explained now why
   2. p.8 - table 2 - formatted
   3. p.10 -  VSM is used everywhere so maybe putting e.g. in brackets - edited 
   4. 11/12 - why is Level 0 and level 5 the same in the table 4 - there was an error , now edited
   5. p14 - Table 7 - edited 
   6. p 15 - why is here level 5 for lubricants different in relation to the level 5 in table on p11/12 - added proper information
   7. p 20 - based on what you state that the use of VSM in marginal in maintenance? References, data!!! - added proper information
   8. 23 - you state that the case study is one company but then in results you state companies - edited 
   9. 23. Logistics dimension 6.2. - how many interviews - added correct information about the questioning process 
   10. results - edited, rewritten added information 
   11. conclusion do not repeat the things - edited, rewritten, added further research options
   12. no not use bulletpoints in conclusion  - edited, rewritten?

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The changes made by the authors are satisfactory. 

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear Authors,

Thank you for updating the paper which is very interesting for reading.