Barriers to the adoption of industry 4.0 technologies within the Australian fashion industry

The global fashion industry is undergoing rapid digitisation in which new Industry 4.0 technologies are changing the way fashion is designed and produced. The Australian fashion industry is considered to be slow in adopting these new technologies. The purpose of this research study is to investigate the current acceptability of Industry 4.0 technologies and the barriers to adoption within Australia. Data from forty-nine fashion organisations were obtained using a technology acceptance model (TAM) survey and a series of ten semi-structured interviews. The TAM survey results indicate that the industry accepts Industry 4.0 technologies to be useful and somewhat easy to use; however, technologies such as autonomous robotics, sensor and digital twin technologies are currently underutilised. Providing further insight, the interviews highlighted the key barriers to be the lack of industry leadership, misaligned knowledge and skills within higher education, and issues in the accessibility and scalability of technical skills and capabilities.