4Manufacturing® is a tool developed by industry specialists to help UK manufacturers, and particularly SMEs, understand and adopt industrial digital technologies. The tool, used in conjunction with face-to-face expert support, is used to identify challenges currently faced by manufacturing businesses and ways in which these can be addressed by investment in and adoption of technology. An RCT was designed to evaluate the effect of the 4Manufacturing® tool and expert support on SMEs' investment in and adoption of industrial digital technologies. However, owing to difficulties of recruitment and high levels of attrition, no statistically significant impacts were identified. The project can therefore be considered more as a pilot than a final evaluation.
Learning from this trial has been discussed in an IGL blog post.