**4. Results**

The collected sample of SME data presents an almost balanced distribution with a third of micro enterprises (35), a third of small enterprises (49) and a third of medium enterprises (35).

Respondents were segmented as shown in **Figure 2** through the different area of the railway domain.

The top three places were engineering, supplies and manufacturing in rolling stock and the design and manufacturing of control command signalling. However, all

#### **Figure 2.**

*Areas of the railway domain that the SMEs are operating or planning to operate.*

segments were practically well represented in the sample, with a balanced distribution. Construction works and Infrastructure facilities were the least represented among the respondents.

### **4.1 Trends on today's picture about use of technologies**

In terms of respondents' approach to digital technologies, almost 48.5% of companies said that they need to introduce advanced digital technologies, and they had already started to adopt technologies. However, it was found that around 50% of them had not yet reached this point. Of these, 30% were considering adoption, although 10% of them do not have the necessary skills or financial resources to do so. The remaining 20% think that they do not need to adopt any advanced technology.

As can be seen in **Figure 3**, there are many barriers to digitalisation. Financial resources are the main obstacle to adopting digital technologies, followed by technical risks such as security or standardisation. The lack of skills is also considered a barrier

**Figure 3.** *Enterprises' approach to digital technologies.*

## *Analysis on the Technological Needs and Requirements of SMEs in Rail DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110155*

to digitalisation; however, it can be assumed that there is a linkage with the lack of resources (See **Figure 4**).

In order to analyse the actual state of technology adoption, the survey asked about the level of adoption for a number of new digital technologies. As can be seen in **Figure 5** and **Figure 6**, the majority of respondents had heard about the majority of the technologies identified but did not use them. The less-known digital technology was photonics and the best-known connectivity, cloud computing, internet of things and cybersecurity.

All the identified advanced technologies can be implemented in different business areas and processes. According to **Figure 7**, analysis of operations-related data and

#### **Figure 4.** *Barriers to digitalisation in the enterprises.*

**Figure 6.**

*Levels of knowledge of each of the technologies in the companies.*

**Figure 7.** *Areas in which the companies implement technologies.*

analysis of machine or device data are the two areas where technologies are the most needed and implemented according to the survey responses, followed by support services/products innovation. The Railway and Multimodal sectors seem to have less interest in data analysis of online customer behaviour or in technologies that could ensure warranty management and service execution.

However, as can be seen in **Figure 8**, the SMEs prefer customised solutions, and while in 14% of the cases, solutions are used in their entirety, in almost 20% of cases, future needs are taken into account in a specific solution, and for 15% of respondents, solutions are fully specific and integrated in the complete production process.

In terms of maintenance strategy (see **Figure 9**), the majority of the respondents (80%) apply predictive maintenance, while less than 10% rely solely on reactive maintenance (10% answered that they do not apply any maintenance strategy at all). 30% of companies follow fixed time schedules to ensure maintenance plan, while some (19%) manage it according to the use of current technology.

Regarding the use of standards and digital tools to ensure the security and quality of production processes in the companies, 68% of them stated that they were applying engineering standards for products, processes and services and that they relied on

*Analysis on the Technological Needs and Requirements of SMEs in Rail DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110155*

**Figure 8.** *Advanced technologies sources implementation in the companies.*

**Figure 9.** *Maintenance strategy of advanced technologies and tools.*

digital means in order to ensure at least one of the following requirements: reliability, security or predictability. However, 20% of the answers were negative to the question.

Only 28% of enterprises collected data from sensors or machinery to monitor production and infrastructure. As for cybersecurity, it is fairly well considered (92%), in half of the cases, only by IT departments, but in the other half, in all areas of the company. In this last case, in 70%, cybersecurity standards and tools are installed and maintained internally by the company's cybersecurity team, while in the other 30%, cybersecurity is outsourced.

### **4.2 Strategy and vision**

After collecting information on the current status of the implementation of digital technologies, it can be seen whether companies have a clear vision of their needs and how they could become more competitive by adopting technologies.

It was found that most companies have identified their technology needs; onethird of them have identified possible use cases that require the adoption of one or more advanced technologies but had not yet implemented them, and another third had not yet identified use cases.

In terms of priorities for the use of advanced technologies by companies, the most prominent would be the optimisation of operations, the development of innovative features in existing products/services and the development of entirely new products/ services. There is no clear ranking across the board; each of these three needs seems to be considered of equal priority; however, the development of innovative features has a small lead in preference, followed by optimisation and thirdly by the development of new products or services.

A small majority of respondents do not have a clear digitalisation strategy; almost all of those who do have a clear digitalisation strategy have a time horizon of at least 2 years, and a considerable part of them even have more than 3 years in their time horizon (see **Figure 10**).

In the case of investment policies, 50% focus on the cases of the replacement of obsolete machines or software. However, the other half of the SMEs are less advanced in their investment: 13% have plans for a state of the art; 14% have a road map that includes the evaluation of new technologies through feasibility studies, and 17% have a road map that includes a research and development approach for advance relevant technologies to higher maturity levels.

Looking at each country's average about innovation strategies (see figure table above), the results are balanced, and all countries seem to have identified their needs.

In terms of green transition, almost 65% of respondents said that there is not a clear transition strategy in their company. Respondents rated the different areas to which they aim to contribute to make the railway and multimodality sector greener as below (the score in parentheses represents the average obtained by each item proposed).


**Figure 10.** *Time horizon for delivering the strategy.*


*Analysis on the Technological Needs and Requirements of SMEs in Rail DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110155*


In order to analyse the companies' contribution to a greener rail and multimodal sector, a list of related actions was proposed. This showed that 51% of the companies already implement a strategy to reduce energy consumption and that recycling and the use of more sustainable and advanced materials are also strategies implemented by almost 40% of the respondents, as well as waste reduction. Other avenues proposed were new ways of working, such as hybrid and home working, the production and use of renewable energy or the use of IoT and data analytics for a more robust engineering process (see **Figure 11**).

Despite all these achievements, a big majority of respondents were not compliant with standards or certification, even if 75% of them intended to apply in the future, and 13% had a clear deadline for achieving a targeted eco-efficiency level. Only 12% already had a low footprint certification or a green transition standard like ISO (9001, 14,000, 14,001, 45,001), SA80003, EMAS4 and ECOVADIS5.

Finally, half of the SMEs do not advertise about this point, and from the other half, only 12% follow a specific communication strategy. For the rest, communication is

**Figure 11.** *Contributions of the companies.*

**Figure 12.**

*Enterprises advertising green products/services.*

summed up to non-professional advertising or reference on product/services or on websites or social media (see **Figure 12**).

#### **4.3 View on future implementation of technologies**

After understanding the actual state of implementation of technologies and the strategic vision for the coming years, SMEs were asked about the advanced technologies they expect to use in the future and the degrees of each of them (see **Figure 13**).

As we can see in **Figure 13**, on the one hand, there are advanced technologies which are clearly already implemented or will be in the short term (less than one year). It is the case for internet of things (IoT)/edge computing, connectivity (fixed, mobile), cloud computing and cybersecurity. On the other hand, there are some technologies that seem to be less appealing for SMEs to be implemented, according to those who have answered the survey: blockchain, advanced materials, photonics, nanotechnology, advanced manufacturing technologies, micro- and nanoelectronics and, to a lesser extent, augmented/virtual reality (AR/VR). Big data and analytics and

### *Analysis on the Technological Needs and Requirements of SMEs in Rail DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.110155*

**Figure 13.** *Expected future degree of use of the advanced technologies in the companies.*

artificial intelligence (AI) will take at least 2 years to be deployed, but they are of interest for the companies.

The main risks or obstacles when fostering innovation in the railway and multimodality market are: regulatory aspects, legacy technologies, internal lack of economic resources for investments, no innovation demand in my market segment clients with low digital capacities.
