Categorization of European Countries for Industry4.0 Inequality by Unsupervised Machine Learning Techniques

Abstract

Industry4.0 applications have become a strategic issue for countries because of giving competitive potential. In this context, studies are realized on ranking and grouping countries to determine the usage levels of Industry4.0 technologies. However, containing different variables, indexes and techniques in these studies presents different results. The lack of an agreed technique for grouping countries based on Industry4.0 technologies leads to method confusion on the subject. Clustering is one of the most suitable options for sorting or grouping a dataset. The purpose of the study is to categorize the countries according to usage of Industry4.0 technologies by using machine learning techniques. The clustering algorithms were applied to the ICT Usage in Enterprises data compiled from Eurostat. In the study, the most appropriate clustering algorithm was specified, the distance values within and between clusters were calculated, and the level differences in Industry4.0 technologies of the countries were determined.