Should firms investigating in IOT domain buy or implement in their Industry 4.0 initiatives? An application of Type-2 Fuzzy COPRAS

Abstract

Since decades managers and scientists have been investigating the vertical boundaries of the firms to understand when to buy goods and services or make them internally. Since there are number of pros and cons on making or buying, the decision is very complex. Firms not only focus on the tangible terms like transaction costs and economies of scale but also consider other factors like information asymmetry, know-how protection and data source quality to keep or gain competitive advantage. Yet this isn’t simple enough, with the rapid growth of technology, the fourth industry revolution and digitalization challenge firms even further. Deciding on digitalization strategy isn’t anywhere different than the existing make buy decision that firms have faced in the past, however this time with an increased complexity. In this article, we are aiming to understand what strategies firms should apply during their journey in industry 4.0 and a verification with an industrial case study. The purpose of this study is to suggest a Type-2 Fuzzy COPRAS methodology to aid the buy or implement decisions of firms in IOT domain.