Industry 4.0: Conceptualization, backgrounds, developments and its applicability in regional context

The aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review of specialized literature that includes conceptualization, background, developments and applicability concerned with the term "Industry 4.0" in regional context; seeking to determine the progress that has been achieved in recent years in this area. The article allowed to response two main questions: What is the Industry 4.0?, Is it likely to be implemented in Regional Context?, these questions were supported with others questions: What is the environment of the Industry 4.0 and what are the reasons and motivations for its implementation?, What are the basic theories about industry 4.0 and what exactly do they consist of?, What are the differences among selected world regions in terms of the demand, fomentation and implementation of the Industry 4.0?. Now, the two main objectives of this work were: Describe the characteristics of the Industry 4.0; Analyse its applicability in Regional context; in specific, Identify and describe the environment of the Industry 4.0 together with its principle reasons for its implementation, Describe the basic theories of the Industry 4.0, Identify the requirements and differences of the Industry 4.0 in different world regions and Analyse the applicability and necessity of the Industry 4.0 in regional context. This work is based on two investigation types: The first part, the characterization of the Industry 4.0, is descriptive. However, the second part, the investigation of the applicability, is explorative. The methods used in this work is inductive. In order to obtain the results for the second, exploratory part questionnaires will be used. The information obtained from this method will be analysed and presented in the last part of this work.