Digital Transformation and Technological Innovation in Engineering Systems

Abstract

The research design used in this study is quantitative explanatory research, focusing on the relationship between digital transformation and technological innovation, specifically in the engineering system and the use of digital technologies including Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Cloud computing, Digital twins, Big data analytics and advanced automation. The data were gathered by means of a structured questionnaire that was administered to the engineers, technical managers, project managers and technology professionals working on engineering systems, resulting in 285 valid responses. The digital transformation and technological innovation were evaluated using a five-point Likert scale based on five dimensions: digital infrastructure, data integration, process digitization, technological capabilities and organizational readiness, and on innovation capability, development of new solutions, process innovation and implementation of advanced engineering technologies, respectively. The measurement instrument was tested for reliability and validity before testing the hypotheses, and Pearson correlation and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were used to see if, and how, digital transformation predicted technological innovation, and how much contribution each dimension of digital transformation made. Each of the constructs showed acceptable reliability and validity. The correlation analysis results of Pearson showed strong and significant positive correlation between digital transformation and technological innovation. The results from the hierarchical regression indicated that the impact of digital transformation on technological innovation is statistically significant and positive while controlling for other factors; technological capabilities and the process digitization yielded the highest value for the variance explained at the individual level, with an additional significant proportion of the variance explained by digital transformation. These results show that digital transformation is a key factor in technological innovations for engineering systems, and highlight the need to place great emphasis on technological capability building and process digitization in organizational digital transformation.