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1. Introduction
The automotive industry has a deep impact on the society and environment; it is one of the most important sectors, dynamic (Smerichevskyi et al., 2018), and one of the largest manufacturing sectors (Mathivathanan et al., 2018). Since it directly correlated with manufacturing and service sectors, the automotive industry is viewed as one of the most pertinent contributors for the economy (Mohiuddin et al., 2017; Lee and Govindan, 2014). The number of vehicles produced in a manufacturing plant over a period of time due to the globalization, the increase of ASEAN population with over 600m (Shukor et al., 2017) and also the intensified competition in the automotive industry (Bartnik et al., 2018; Chrisostom and Monari, 2018) have made the automotive sector powerful worldwide (Pechancová, 2017), including its global auto-component suppliers (Kalogerakis et al., 2017). Besides abundance of opportunities, globalization also paved the way with various challenges for all industries including the automotive industry (Lamprecht and Tolmay, 2017). In Malaysia, the Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad had announced the direction and policies that will guide industries in Malaysia toward Industrial Revolution 4.0. The brief of industrial revolution from the first IR to the fourth IR, taken from Official Website of the Malaysia Automotive Robotics and IoT Institute (2018), is given as follows:
Industrial Revolution 1.0:
It can be traced back to 1760s; it was characterized by the transition from hand production methods to machines, the increasing use of steam power, the development of machine tools and the rise of the factory system.
Industrial Revolution 2.0:
It can be traced back to 1870s and it is known as Technological Revolution. It was characterized by vast movement of people and ideas, enhanced communication and the introduction of new technological systems.
Industrial Revolution 3.0:
It can be traced back to late 1950s and it is known as Digital Revolution. It was characterized by the transition from mechanical and analogue electronic technology to digital electronics, which caused the widespread use of computer, hand phones and the internet.
Industrial Revolution 4.0:
It can be traced back to the year 2016 in which the use of cyber-physical systems had started, which were controlled or monitored by computer-based algorithms tightly integrated with the internet and its users...