With the development of the 4th industrial revolution technology, digital transformation is being promoted worldwide, strengthening national competitiveness. Leading countries that have adopted and promoted smart factories are Germany, the United Stat...
With the development of the 4th industrial revolution technology, digital transformation is being promoted worldwide, strengthening national competitiveness. Leading countries that have adopted and promoted smart factories are Germany, the United States, Japan, and China, and Korea has been developing government-led smart factory supply and diffusion projects since 2014. The government has supported 30,144 companies by the end of 2022 to achieve quantitative goals for small and medium-sized companies, and the number of companies using smart factories has increased, but most companies are only introducing solutions such as MES and ERP. The realization of a smart factory is a project that must be promoted for the survival of the country, and the government plans to promote qualitative advancement from quantitative support. The Smart Manufacturing Innovation Promotion Team under the Ministry of SMEs and Startups conducts a level-check evaluation of smart manufacturing capabilities and construction systems for small and medium-sized companies, but most companies' smart factory levels have not been advanced and remain at the basic level. In order to secure the competitiveness of manufacturing companies, it is necessary to introduce advanced intelligent smart factories, which are in the advanced stage. The variables were selected by applying the TOE framework after collecting opinions on the factors affecting advancement from prior research and working-level executives and employees of smart factory-related business promotion institutions, organizations, ICT suppliers, and introduced companies. Technological factors are relative advantages, compatibility, ease of use, organizational factors are managerial will and ICT utilization capabilities, and environmental factors are financial capabilities and government support as independent variables. In addition, user satisfaction was selected as a mediated variable to design a research model on factors affecting smart factory advancement. 331 copies were collected after distributing the questionnaire to companies that build and operate smart factories above the basic level, and 321 copies were used in this study, excluding 10 copies that were unfaithfully responded. The analysis tool used the SPSS 22.0 program and was verified by conducting frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis on corporate characteristics. In factor analysis, 10 hypotheses were set for the 9 potential variables, and as a result, 9 hypotheses were accepted and 1 hypothesis was rejected. As a result of the hypothesis testing, the hypothesis was adopted that the relative advantage, compatibility, and ease of use of technical factors, which are key factors related to advancement, will have a positive (+) effect on user satisfaction. This is interpreted that upgrading will lead to improved work performance as the use of smart factories increases, the quality of work improves through information sharing, and decision-making becomes faster. The hypothesis was adopted that organizational factors, such as management's will and members' ICT utilization capabilities, will have a positive influence on the intention to adopt. This means that for advancement, recognition and support from management is required and users' ICT utilization capabilities must be high. As for environmental factors, the hypothesis that financial capacity and government support for advancement would have a positive influence on the intention to adopt was partially accepted. The hypothesis that government support would have a positive effect on the intention to adopt was accepted, but financial capacity was rejected. If a company's decision-maker judges the economic situation or future growth potential and pursues it with government support, it is interpreted that the advancement can be promoted by reducing the financial burden. It was found that user satisfaction had a positive (+) effect on the intention to introduce technical factors(relative advantage, compatibility, ease of use). Until now, there have been many studies on factors influencing the introduction of smart factories or performance factors, but since its introduction, studies on the impact of the advancement of information systems above the basic level are insufficient. From this point of view, if this study becomes a starting point and more research is conducted in the future, it will be meaningful both practically and academically. Many Korean companies hope to advance and grow sustainably by securing global manufacturing competitiveness. Keywords: Smart Factory Advancement, TOE Framework, the Intention to Introduce, User Satisfaction