Smart and Resilient Transformation of Manufacturing Firms
, Giuditta Pezzotta 2, Branko Markoski 1, Veronica Arioli 2 and Ugljesa Marjanovic 1
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
In my opinion this an interesting field of investigation, however because ot this the more it needs a rigorously applied methodology, indeed. In my opinion authors failed in combining several methods, they are not supporting each other. For example the qualitative interviews are not properly performed, just slogan answers, and it is not clear how it contributes to the knowledge. Also the network analysis is not clear, we really do not know what these numbers on Figure 2 means. So, this is highly suggested to remove from the title the phrase "a mixed methods approach", because this in fact is nothing valuable in this study. Additionally I am totally not convinced that DTs result with financial resilience. In my opinion companies with greater financial resources use introduce these technologies more often, please convince me that I am wrong. Also answer to RQ3 in the discussion section is not justified in empirical results. And one more example to help authors deeper understand what I mean, how 3D Printing, which is rather only sectorally applicable and Dig Twins which is still in manufacturing in the phase of experiments could be generalised as supporting financial resilience of companies (line 296-298). And by the way what do you mean by financial resilience of a company, the amount of net profit, a rate of net profit, net cash flow, or ... or ...; this is not an empty question, this is totally fundamental issue for your study. I suppose this study could be published only if you address substantially all the issues mentioned above. Good lock.
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 1 of Manuscript entitled "Smart and Resilient Transformation of Manufacturing Firms: A Mixed Method Approach"
Reviewer A:
Comment 1: In my opinion this an interesting field of investigation, however because ot this the more it needs a rigorously applied methodology, indeed. I suppose this study could be published only if you address substantially all the issues mentioned above. Good lock.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper.
Comment 2: In my opinion authors failed in combining several methods, they are not supporting each other. For example the qualitative interviews are not properly performed, just slogan answers, and it is not clear how it contributes to the knowledge. Also the network analysis is not clear, we really do not know what these numbers on Figure 2 means.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to clarify the part about methodology in our paper. According to the reviewer's comments, we explain the part about interview questions and the SNA method. In addition, we add an additional comment on Figure 2.
Comment 3: So, this is highly suggested to remove from the title the phrase "a mixed methods approach", because this in fact is nothing valuable in this study.
Response: Thank you for this suggestion. We deleted the phrase "a mixed methods approach" in the title of the paper.
Comment 4: Additionally I am totally not convinced that DTs result with financial resilience. In my opinion companies with greater financial resources use introduce these technologies more often, please convince me that I am wrong. Also answer to RQ3 in the discussion section is not justified in empirical results. And one more example to help authors deeper understand what I mean, how 3D Printing, which is rather only sectorally applicable and Dig Twins which is still in manufacturing in the phase of experiments could be generalised as supporting financial resilience of companies (line 296-298).
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain results about digital technologies and financial resilience. According to the reviewer's comment, we changed the second research question. Additionally, in the discussion, we had better explain the relations between financial performance and digital technologies.
Comment 5: And by the way what do you mean by financial resilience of a company, the amount of net profit, a rate of net profit, net cash flow, or ... or ...; this is not an empty question, this is totally fundamental issue for your study.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for this comment. To better explain the financial part of the paper, we add the part in the literature review, which describes financial performance in manufacturing firms.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors present a qualitative survey and analysis of the Serbian manufacturing industry. While interesting, the manuscript requires improvements in the following areas before considering for publication:
- The research questions could be more appropriate to be presented after a real literature review if the authors want to justify it via literature (11 references are not enough, especially as some of them are quite generic). As it is right now, most of the RQs could be better justified.
- The literature review misses the link between what is reviewed and how that helps to justify the methods used by the authors in the study. There is no link to be found explicitly between the reviewed literature and the content of the research on this manuscript.
- The methodology section could be improved by providing a proper presentation of the methodology used for the research, not just a couple of the methods used. For example, how is Fig. 2. included in the methodology and how does it help with the results mentioned?
- Eigenvector and centrality could be better presented (equations) and properly referenced, even if they are well-known. A brief description and justification of the authors choice must be also included.
- It may be due to the low amount of surveying in the questions made, but the results and discussion seem lackluster. No explicit contribution has been found in relation to existing literature regarding the challenges of companies, especially SMEs, in regard to the digital transformation. I suggest that the authors make an effort to better highlight what the contribution to the body of knowledge this paper is all about. Also, additional work on the practical implications of the survey results is needed.
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 2 of Manuscript entitled "Smart and Resilient Transformation of Manufacturing Firms: A Mixed Method Approach"
Reviewer B:
Comment 1: The authors present a qualitative survey and analysis of the Serbian manufacturing industry. While interesting, the manuscript requires improvements in the following areas before considering for publication.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper.
Comment 2: The research questions could be more appropriate to be presented after a real literature review if the authors want to justify it via literature (11 references are not enough, especially as some of them are quite generic). As it is right now, most of the RQs could be better justified.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain the literature review according to other relevant studies. To better explain the literature review of the paper, we add the part in the literature review, which describes financial performance in manufacturing firms. According to the reviewer's comment, we changed the second research question.
Comment 3: The literature review misses the link between what is reviewed and how that helps to justify the methods used by the authors in the study. There is no link to be found explicitly between the reviewed literature and the content of the research on this manuscript. The methodology section could be improved by providing a proper presentation of the methodology used for the research, not just a couple of the methods used. For example, how is Fig. 2. included in the methodology and how does it help with the results mentioned?
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to clarify the part about methodology in our paper. According to the reviewer's comments, we explain the part about interview questions and the SNA method. In addition, we add an additional comment on Figure 2.
Comment 4: Eigenvector and centrality could be better presented (equations) and properly referenced, even if they are well-known. A brief description and justification of the authors choice must be also included.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. We added the part about centrality description in methodology.
Comment 5: It may be due to the low amount of surveying in the questions made, but the results and discussion seem lackluster. No explicit contribution has been found in relation to existing literature regarding the challenges of companies, especially SMEs, in regard to the digital transformation. I suggest that the authors make an effort to better highlight what the contribution to the body of knowledge this paper is all about. Also, additional work on the practical implications of the survey results is needed.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain the results and discussion in the paper. We added an additional part about the theoretical and practical implications of the paper.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Please, improve this minor deficiencies:
Abstract is well written and describes the main findings from the manuscript. I recommend minor change: the second and the third sentence start with "This paper ...". At the third write "It uses ...".
Introduction is well written, however, you need better to explain the needs and the aim of the study.
In Figure 1 four areas are listed, but only three are discussed later in Section 2 (without the Financial performance). Maybe add some comments in the literature review.
Literature review describes the main topics of the manuscript such as Smart Manufacturing, Resilient manufacturing, and Digital servitization. For a better explanation of these topics, please, consult the literature:
1. Manufacturing Capacity Evaluation of Smart Job-Shop Based on Neural Network (https://doi.org/10.2507/IJSIMM20-4-CO19)
2. Digital Twin Testbed and Practical Applications in Production Logistics with Real-Time Location Data (http://doi.org/10.24867/IJIEM-2021-2-282)
3. Innovation Ecosystem with Chinese Characteristics: Experiences and Lessons from Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises (https://doi.org/10.17559/TV-20200818103409)
4. Digital Production Control of Manufacturing Workshop Based on Internet of Things (https://doi.org/10.2507/IJSIMM20-3-CO15)
Line 142: unnecessary dot after the word "fills".
Methodology: please, describe clearly a data collection procedure, and show in Table 2 the distribution of firms by industry sector. The other parts are very well described.
Line 172: missing comma after the word "Mexico".
Results are very well described.
In the heading of Table 2 add twice the word "centrality" to get: Eigenvector centrality and Betweennes centrality.
For better understanding prolong the title of Table 3 with the variable abbreviation to get: Correlation between product-related services and gross annual turnover (GAT). Symbols of quantities (variables) should be written in italics (in the table heading => GAT). The same in Table 4.
Discussion: please, show the more practical implications of the interviews with the firm representatives.
Conclusion is well-written and described.
Some formatting recommendations for the References:
3. Better use the English version of the journal title (Tech. Gazette).
4. After the Now what? delete | The Economist.
7. Provide all authors like in other references.
35. Missing name initial for the second author; provide all authors; use journal title abbreviation like in other references.
36. Use journal title abbreviation like in other references.
Author Response
Point by point response to Reviewer 3 of Manuscript entitled "Smart and Resilient Transformation of Manufacturing Firms: A Mixed Method Approach"
Reviewer C:
Comment 1: Abstract is well written and describes the main findings from the manuscript. I recommend minor change: the second and the third sentence start with "This paper ...". At the third write "It uses ...".
Response: Thank you for this comment. We changed the third sentence with the "It uses ..."
Comment 2: In Figure 1 four areas are listed, but only three are discussed later in Section 2 (without the Financial performance). Maybe add some comments in the literature review.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain the literature review according to other relevant studies. To better explain the literature review of the paper, we add the part in the literature review, which describes financial performance in manufacturing firms.
Comment 3: Literature review describes the main topics of the manuscript such as Smart Manufacturing, Resilient manufacturing, and Digital servitization. For a better explanation of these topics, please, consult the literature:
- Manufacturing Capacity Evaluation of Smart Job-Shop Based on Neural Network (https://doi.org/10.2507/IJSIMM20-4-CO19)
- Digital Twin Testbed and Practical Applications in Production Logistics with Real-Time Location Data (http://doi.org/10.24867/IJIEM-2021-2-282)
- Innovation Ecosystem with Chinese Characteristics: Experiences and Lessons from Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises (https://doi.org/10.17559/TV-20200818103409)
- Digital Production Control of Manufacturing Workshop Based on Internet of Things (https://doi.org/10.2507/IJSIMM20-3-CO15)
Line 142: unnecessary dot after the word "fills".
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. We consult the proposed literature in our revised paper.
Comment 4: please, describe clearly a data collection procedure, and show in Table 2 the distribution of firms by industry sector. The other parts are very well described.
Response: Thank you for this comment. We detailed described a data collection procedure and add Table 2.
Comment 5: Results are very well described. In the heading of Table 2 add twice the word "centrality" to get: Eigenvector centrality and Betweennes centrality. For better understanding prolong the title of Table 3 with the variable abbreviation to get: Correlation between product-related services and gross annual turnover (GAT). Symbols of quantities (variables) should be written in italics (in the table heading => GAT). The same in Table 4.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain the title of the Correlation tables. We changed it according to the reviewer's comment.
Comment 6: Discussion: please, show the more practical implications of the interviews with the firm representatives.
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for making us aware of the need to better explain the results and discussion in the paper. We added an additional part about the theoretical and practical implications of the paper.
Comment 7: Conclusion is well-written and described.
Response: Thank you for your kind comment.
Comment 8: Some formatting recommendations for the References:
- Better use the English version of the journal title (Tech. Gazette).
- After the Now what? delete | The Economist.
- Provide all authors like in other references.
- Missing name initial for the second author; provide all authors; use journal title abbreviation like in other references.
- Use journal title abbreviation like in other references.
Response: We appreciate the suggestion about the references. We use the citation style according to
the Journal template.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
thank you for improving the study, many issues have been really addressed; however, I would like to focus your attention on RQ2, unfortunately your study still have not convinced me that some particular technologies/services really affect companies' fin performance; I highly suggest to rethink this issue once again and modify your theses towards coexistence of both phenomenons/variables; in the RQs as well as conclusions parts; believe me your study will gain more credibility
Author Response
Comment 1: thank you for improving the study, many issues have been really addressed; however, I would like to focus your attention on RQ2, unfortunately your study still have not convinced me that some particular technologies/services really affect companies' fin performance; I highly suggest to rethink this issue once again and modify your theses towards coexistence of both phenomenons/variables; in the RQs as well as conclusions parts; believe me your study will gain more credibility
Response: We are thankful to the reviewer for giving us the opportunity to strengthen the paper. According to the reviewer's comments, we rewrote the RQ2 and made a new perspective in the discussion and conclusion according to the RQ2. We hope that with these changes we will gain more credibility for our paper.
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript. For your convenience, we have highlighted in red the changes in the manuscript.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thank you for your time to address the issues raised up in the previous revision.
Author Response
Comment 1: Thank you for your time to address the issues raised up in the previous revision.
Response: We would like to express our deepest gratitude to reviewer for the given suggestions about improving our manuscript
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
