In small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), the ways of operating are dependent on the specific nature of their business activity, while management methods are often used intuitively. The paper shows that specialization, defined as offering products to companies from one or from two to four industries, is of great importance among SMEs in the gas sector. The analysis of the applied management methods allows us to conclude that the most important ones are those related to human capital.

Maintenance involves a large amount of data management. Although many tools, strategies, and systems, have been developed to organize the maintenance information resources, SMEs have not found the same benefits as large companies due to their inherent characteristics and, above all, the maturity level of the maintenance department. Maturity models are useful tools for assessing the maturity of maintenance information practices; however, existing models are not suitable for any type of business context, as they required companies to have a clear organizational structure and definite informative infrastructure. Moreover, they do not assist in identifying and defining actions to reach the highest level. This paper proposes a model for assessing and improving maintenance management information practices. It allows a clear measure of the maturity of the maintenance information management practices in industrial contexts and provides improvement actions identifying the information and data needed to enhance maintenance management information practices.

The article presents a business model based on an industrial network of companies capable of producing personalized products in an Industry 4.0 environment. Based on research conducted in Poland, in manufacturing companies, the critical problems associated with the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies and the expected benefits associated with their implementation are addressed. The model’s task is to integrate a customer expecting personalized production with a network of companies with the appropriate production resources. The original achievement is the integration of the customer and the manufacturer around an e-business platform, which allows the rapid prototyping of a network of SME companies capable of realizing personalized production. The proposed model describes the architecture of enterprise cooperation under the conditions of implementing the Industry 4.0 concept and is dedicated to the SME sector. The model provides a basis for building prototypes of e-business platforms of small and medium-sized enterprises.