Introducing Industry 4.0 to McDonald's: A Replication Case Study

Industry 4.0 1
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Industry 4.0 2
Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
About the Company...................................................................................................................3
Literature Review.......................................................................................................................3
Replication of case study...........................................................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10

Industry 4.0 3
Introduction
Industry 4.0 is the use of various technologies, such as cognitive computing, cloud computing
and automation to increase production in the organization. The following looks at some of the
literature surrounding Industry 4.0, and how this can be applied to the chosen organization,
which is McDonald's.
About the Company
The organization that is chosen is McDonald's, which is a large fast-food company. It is a
multinational organization, and a formal, private sector organization. There are 37,000 people
who have been employed in McDonald’s. McDonald’s is a large-scale organization, which
can be seen form the profit which they earn, and the number of people who have been
working in the organization. The main products sold by the organization are burgers, French
fries and milkshakes (Popkova, Ragulina and Bogoviz, 2018). They also have a large section
called McCafé, which provides coffee and various drinks in many McDonald’s outlets as
well. This makes it one of the largest fast-food chains in the world since apart from Subway,
it also has the largest number of franchises as well (Junior et al., 2018). The main customers
of the organization differ from various countries. The main customers in India, for example,
would be the young, middle-class population, which consists of those who have moderately
well-paying jobs, and are living in cities. In the United States of America, however, the target
is the majority of the population and those who are in the lower-middle class, who cannot
afford to have food from various organizations.
Literature Review
Industry 4.0 is the current trend of automation and revolution in the internet industry, which
can be traced back to Germany.

Industry 4.0 4
According to Lasi, et al., (2014), the name for Industry 4.0 was revived from a German
exhibition or fair in 2011, where the automation of the machines in various industries was
being discussed. However, the term originates from a high-powered government project in
Germany (Lasi, et al., 2014). Industry 4.0 is the fourth industries revolution, and this can be
seen in the way that the machines have been known to automatically use data-exchange, the
latest technology and the cyber-physical systems that are in place to ensure that the
organization has been working in to increase the process of automation, and the use of cloud
computing and the Internet of Things.
Almada-Lobo, (2016), feel that Industry 4.0 is the beginning of smart factories, which use the
latest technology, and Industry 4.0 is the end of traditional applications of centralized control.
Thus, according to them, Industry 4.0 would have started with the use of the Internet f
Things, and Robotics in organizational production lines (Almada-Lobo, 2016). Industry 4.0 is
one of the biggest changes in recent times and has been compared to the Industrial
Revolution regarding the extent of innovation that has gone into the organisations who have
been using the Internet to ensure that there are changes that have been made.
Industry 4.0 started with the use of digitization, and the use of various technologies by
various means in an organization. This meant that when various industries, according to Qi
and Tao, (2018), started using digital technology, and the internet in order to make sure that
the machines were working efficiently, and to reduce the use of manpower into the processes
of manufacturing, Industry 4.0 had started to begin (Qi and Tao, 2018). This could have a
significant impact on the organization since it would mean that it would be easier to achieve
synchronization within the industry as well.
According to Xu, Xu and Li, (2018), the Internet of Things and automation is one of the main
issues that are concerned with the organization, and this has been having a significant effect