Abstract:
This study has brought the Tanzania manufacturing sector in perspective of the new
Fourth Industry Revolution. In this quest, the study endeavoured to build upon the
concept of Technological Leapfrogging, to leapfrog the adoption of I4.0 in Tanzania.
The study employed a mixed research protocol, that used both descriptive and
correlational approaches - using Logistic Regression to analyze the data gathered from
256 respondents from 89 manufacturing entities (MEs) in Dar es Salaam and Coastal
Region.
The findings indicated that 74.61 per cent of the manufacturing entities surveyed, their
manufacturing equipment are purely physical factories with production equipment that
is entirely cut off from IT systems and no real-time information can be gathered.
Further, it was revealed that many manufacturers lack a solid understanding of the
prerequisites towards adopting I4.0. Given the current state of I4.0 in Tanzania, a
model referred to as the LFADOPTIONI4.0 is proposed with some specific
dimensions as the building blocks for the adoption of I4.0 in the manufacturing sector.
The building blocks include Strategy for I4.0 Adoption; Cost of Adoption; Importation
and Absorption of Latest Technologies; Capability Building; Government Role;
Megatrends for I4.0 and Future Investment.
The decision was that the null hypothesis be rejected in favour of the alternative
hypothesis since it is statistically significant at 5 per cent. Thus, the proposed
leapfrogging model for the adoption of I4.0 in manufacturing entities is suitable for
I4.0 adoption or not. Thus, because of automation, and digitization, AI, big data, and
cloud computing we should anticipate the displacement of some specific jobs.
Therefore, there is a need to prepare the workforce of the future. To this end, Tanzania
has not established whether the country has a pure Industry 3.0 or transforming to
Industry 4.0. Nevertheless, there is a need for National Strategy for Industry 4.0
Adoption (Tanzania 4.0).
