This study aims to identify and prioritize key Quality 4.0 dimensions in the service sector to support strategic, data-driven, and human-centric quality transformation. By emphasizing sustainability and adaptability alongside digital integration, the study positions Quality 4.0 as a foundational pathway toward Quality 5.0 readiness in service organizations.
A sequential exploratory mixed-method approach is employed. Qualitative insights were gathered through semi-structured interviews with experienced quality and digital transformation professionals, followed by quantitative prioritization using an integrated FAHP–TOPSIS framework. Eighteen Quality 4.0 dimensions were evaluated under three overarching themes: People, Process, and Technology, using sustainability, adaptability, and organizational performance as decision criteria.
The results reveal that top management support as the most influential dimension, followed by customer focus, big data and analytics, and technology integration. The prioritization highlights that long-term sustainability and organizational adaptability outweigh short-term performance considerations, underscoring the critical role of leadership, human judgment, and data-driven decision-making in enabling resilient and customer-centric quality systems.
The findings offer analytically generalizable insights for service industries undergoing digital quality transformation. The study contributes to the Quality 4.0 literature by empirically demonstrating how its core dimensions align with emerging Quality 5.0 principles, particularly human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience.
The ranked dimensions provide managers with a structured roadmap to prioritize investments and initiatives that enhance organizational readiness for advanced digital quality systems while maintaining ethical, sustainable, and customer-oriented practices.
This study contributes to Quality 4.0 research by offering a structured, multi-criteria prioritization framework tailored to service industries and by positioning Quality 4.0 implementation as a practical enabler of Quality 5.0 readiness rather than a technological endpoint.
