International Scientific Journals
of Scientific Technical Union of Mechanical Engineering "Industry 4.0"

The European Commission pays particular attention to the digital development of the economy and society. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) has been an essential tool for measurement and monitoring since 2014. In 2021, the cardinal indicators of the DESI index were aligned with the 2030 Digital Compass targets, which have four key areas: digitally skilled population; secure and sustainable digital infrastructures; the digital transformation of businesses, and digitalisation of public services. In the present study, the authors examined the development of digital public services over the past five years, using σ-convergence to measure differences between the Member States and β-convergence to examine how countries could catch up. The individual indicators under the digital public service category have also been analysed to identify critical areas that need to be developed in the future for the digital public service to catch up with the leading Member States. The areas most needing improvement were user-centricity, transparency, and cyber security.

Industry 4.0 has brought about the interconnection of the physical, cyber and socio-economic worlds. Bringing these three worlds together creates a revolutionary approach that is a new trend not only in industry but also in other areas of the economy, thus pushing the economy and business forward. The concept of Industry 4.0 represents the interconnection of digitalisation and automatisation with the use of smart technologies. The main benefit of Industry 4.0 is to produce tailor-made products where lower costs and shorter production efforts are the main values that will attract new customers and thus the profitability of industrial manufacturers will be significan tly affected. Implementing Industry 4.0 in an enterprise will enable efficient use of human and natural resources and raw materials. It will also partially reduce the demands on the environment and create better living conditions for future generations. The intention of the paper was to explain how the Industry 4.0 concept is changing the direction of the Slovak chemical industry. The main objective of the paper was to explicate the Fourth Industrial Revolution in the form of the Industry 4.0 concept in 44 companies operating in the chemical industry in Slovakia on the basis of a knowledge base and a questionnaire survey