The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Purpose of the Assessment
This assignment is designed to enable you to demonstrate an understanding of the likely impact of technology upon existing supply chain operations processes.

Assessment Task
You will conduct a review of the literature in the subject area commonly referred to as “Industry 4.0”. Specifically, you are to identify the origins of the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to chart its development up to the present day.

Following your review, you are to critically evaluate the impact of Industry 4.0 on the supply chain operations of a company of your choice.

You will be expected to illustrate your discussion with examples from academic journals, the trade press and other authoritative sources.

Assessment Breakdown
1. Establish the scenario for your report by selecting an organisation of any type, sector and size to focus your report on. Describe:
a) Which organisation is it? (type, sector and size)
b) What are the main products and/or services provided by the organisation?
c) Who are the main customers?
(10% of word count)
2. Prepare a literature review, charting the development of the concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution from its inception until the present day.

Ensure that you include references to at least 10 peer-reviewed articles, including the 2017 paper by Szozda that has been supplied ( ). You may also find relevant reviews in the trade press and from other authoritative sources.
(45% of word count)

3. Replicate Szozda’s case study (as illustrated by Figures 4 and 5 in the supplied paper) in the context of your chosen company.

How will the company change?
(45% of word count)

Assessment Guidance

The quality of your presentation and academic referencing is very important. Please, use the Harvard Referencing System.

Within your assignment your tutor will be looking for content that addresses the key elements of the assignment brief.

Try not to overcomplicate your answers by choosing a company that you know little about. Keep to simple processes that you know well.

Look at the Check list at the end of this brief. It shows the subheadings to use and offers a guide as to how the marks will be distributed.

Use the percentages as a guide to how to distribute your word count.

Academic Practice
This is an individual assignment. The University of Northampton policy will apply in all cases of copying, plagiarism or any other methods by which students have obtained (or attempted to obtain) an unfair advantage.
Support and guidance on assessments and academic integrity can be found from the following resources

Assessment Submission
To submit your work, please go to the ‘Submit your work’ area on the NILE site and use the relevant submission point to upload your report. The deadline for this is 11.59pm (UK local time) on the date of submission.

Written work submitted to TURNITIN will be subject to anti-plagiarism detection software. Turnitin checks student work for possible textual matches against internet available resources and its own proprietary database.

When you upload your work correctly to TURNITIN you will receive a receipt which is your record and proof of submission.

If your assignment is not submitted to TURNITIN rather than a receipt you will see a green banner at the top of the screen that denotes successful submission.
Your assignment must be word processed and presented in a report format with simple sub-headings. The word count should be 2000 words±10% (tables, diagrams and appendices are excluded from the count).

The Assignment report should have a Front Sheet showing your name, your student number, the module name, the module number, the assignment title, the module tutor’s name, the date and the word count