THE PLACE OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN THE QUALITY ASSURANCE SYSTEM OF INDUSTRY 4.0: A VIEW FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF SUSTAINABILITY AND COMPETITIVENESS

The article is devoted to solving the problem of the imperfection of the existing approach to knowledge management in the quality assurance system of Industry 4.0 products, due to the fact that the place of knowledge management outside the quality assurance system of industry 4.0 products, characteristic of this approach, hinders the achievement of sustainability and competitiveness.The authors have compiled an econometric model based on the international experience of the top 40 leading countries of the world with the most developed industry 4.0 for 2023, which mathematically describes and justifies the significant contribution of knowledge management to the product quality of industry 4.0 from the standpoint of sustainability and competitiveness.The model has identified key factors of sustainability (implementation of SDGs 8 and SDGs 9) and competitiveness, namely knowledge capital, research, development and innovation outputs and impact, as well as information and communications technology usage.To solve this problem, an alternative, new approach to knowledge management in the product quality assurance system of industry 4.0 has been developed, which makes it possible to simultaneously and fully achieve sustainability and competitiveness.The originality of the approach is that it considers quality as a result of sustainability and competitiveness; and knowledge management is interpreted as the embodiment of quality, located inside the quality assurance system of products in industry 4.0.The theoretical significance of the authors' conclusions is that they rethought the place of knowledge management in the product quality assurance system of industry 4.0, which should be inside this system in the interests of sustainability and competitiveness. The practical significance of the developed approach is due to the fact that it will improve the practice of ensuring the product quality of industry 4.0 through the integrated achievement of sustainability and competitiveness through the optimization of knowledge management.