The Quality Manager in the Industry 4.0 Era

Recent advances in digitalization have been causing changes in manufacturing and service processes. Impacting production processes and human resources within organizations, tools such as Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the Internet of Things enable improvements in communication and support I 4.0 (Industry 4.0) and Q 4.0 (Quality 4.0). Traditional quality managers, in particular, must do an effort to adapt their profile according to digitalization demands. The present paper relates to the quality manager skills that will be required at short and medium term as result of digitalization expansion. Using a focus group and semi-structured interviews, the skills needed to Q 4.0 managing were identified. In order to make a final comparison, the focus group contributions and interviewee responses were categorized. Summarizing the main skills needed to the adaptation of quality managers to the digital era reality, the conclusions highlight the relevance of this study for the target groups.