Implementación de la Industria 4.0 en microempresas: Diseño de una hoja de ruta para la transformación digital.

Abstract

Abstract: This thesis develops and validates a practical roadmap for Industry 4.0 adoption in micro and small enterprises, using Textiles Loja (Loja, Ecuador) as the case study. The research starts with a digital maturity assessment and a baseline measurement of the production process, identifying organizational, cultural, financial and technological barriers that hinder digital transformation. Using a mixed-methods case-study approach, Kaizen and Design Thinking are combined to stabilize operations, prioritize improvements and design a minimum viable digital solution (order and inventory management, QR/NFC traceability and a basic KPI dashboard). The implementation timeline is structured through the Three Horizons framework to separate short-, mid- and long-term initiatives and support early value generation and progressive scaling. Validation is conducted through discrete-event simulation in FlexSim by comparing a baseline scenario against improvement and incremental digitalization scenarios to estimate impacts on cycle time, work-in-process (WIP) and productivity. The outcome is a Digital Transformation Strategy Model (METD) suitable for resource-constrained textile SMEs, emphasizing modular adoption and data-driven decisions.