Collaborative approaches in sustainable and resilient manufacturing

Publisher Copyright: © 2022, The Author(s).In recent years, the manufacturing sector is going through a major transformation, as reflected in the concept of Industry 4.0 and digital transformation. The urge for such transformation is intensified when we consider the growing societal demands for sustainability. The notion of sustainable manufacturing has emerged as a result of this trend. Additionally, industries and the whole society face the challenges of an increasing number of disruptive events, either natural or human-caused, that can severely affect the normal operation of systems. Furthermore, the growing interconnectivity between organizations, people, and physical systems, supported by recent developments in information and communication technologies, highlights the important role that collaborative networks can play in the digital transformation processes. As such, this article analyses potential synergies between the areas of sustainable and resilient manufacturing and collaborative networks. The work also discusses how the responsibility for the various facets of sustainability can be distributed among the multiple entities involved in manufacturing. The study is based on a literature survey, complemented with the experience gained from various research projects and related initiatives in the area, and is organized according to various dimensions of Industry 4.0. A brief review of proposed approaches and indicators for measuring sustainability from the networked manufacturing perspective is also included. Finally, a set of key research challenges are identified to complement strategic research agendas in manufacturing.publishersversionpublishe

Mitigating Insider Threat Risks in Cyber-physical Manufacturing Systems

Cyber-Physical Manufacturing System (CPMS)—a next generation manufacturing system—seamlessly integrates digital and physical domains via the internet or computer networks. It will enable drastic improvements in production flexibility, capacity, and cost-efficiency. However, enlarged connectivity and accessibility from the integration can yield unintended security concerns. The major concern arises from cyber-physical attacks, which can cause damages to the physical domain while attacks originate in the digital domain. Especially, such attacks can be performed by insiders easily but in a more critical manner: Insider Threats. Insiders can be defined as anyone who is or has been affiliated with a system. Insiders have knowledge and access authentications of the system\u27s properties, therefore, can perform more serious attacks than outsiders. Furthermore, it is hard to detect or prevent insider threats in CPMS in a timely manner, since they can easily bypass or incapacitate general defensive mechanisms of the system by exploiting their physical access, security clearance, and knowledge of the system vulnerabilities. This thesis seeks to address the above issues by developing an insider threat tolerant CPMS, enhanced by a service-oriented blockchain augmentation and conducting experiments & analysis. The aim of the research is to identify insider threat vulnerabilities and improve the security of CPMS. Blockchain\u27s unique distributed system approach is adopted to mitigate the insider threat risks in CPMS. However, the blockchain limits the system performance due to the arbitrary block generation time and block occurrence frequency. The service-oriented blockchain augmentation is providing physical and digital entities with the blockchain communication protocol through a service layer. In this way, multiple entities are integrated by the service layer, which enables the services with less arbitrary delays while retaining their strong security from the blockchain. Also, multiple independent service applications in the service layer can ensure the flexibility and productivity of the CPMS. To study the effectiveness of the blockchain augmentation against insider threats, two example models of the proposed system have been developed: Layer Image Auditing System (LIAS) and Secure Programmable Logic Controller (SPLC). Also, four case studies are designed and presented based on the two models and evaluated by an Insider Attack Scenario Assessment Framework. The framework investigates the system\u27s security vulnerabilities and practically evaluates the insider attack scenarios. The research contributes to the understanding of insider threats and blockchain implementations in CPMS by addressing key issues that have been identified in the literature. The issues are addressed by EBIS (Establish, Build, Identify, Simulation) validation process with numerical experiments and the results, which are in turn used towards mitigating insider threat risks in CPMS

Enterprise Information Systems vs. Digital Twins – A Case Study on the Properties, Purpose, and Future Relationship in the Logistics Sector

Traditional enterprise information systems have been around for more than 40 years. They are designed to support business processes and deliver information to the people within a company who require it for their work. However, there are blind spots that these systems are unable to address. In this article, we investigate how digital twins, which are based on the technology and architecture of the Industrial Internet of Things, as well as the principles of cyber-physical systems, can be used to fill such gaps and elucidate how their application will affect the prospective relationship between internal information systems and digital twins. The insights are based on a single case study within the logistics department of an industrial company and its service provider. From the case study, properties of both system types were identified that provided a basis for comparison and stimulated discussion about their future dependencies

The General Artificial Intellect

In passages of Marx’s Grundrisse known as the Fragment on Machines, Marx suggested that advanced capitalist development leads to the production of autonomous machines that replace labour-power in the direct production process. Autonomist Marxist interpretations of this text have emphasized that the proliferation of immaterial labour is the historical condition that is leading to a crisis in the measure of value based on labour-time and that will lead to a future communist mode of production. Further, Mario Tronti posited that as capitalist development unfolds, it subsumes both the state and society, a concept known as the ‘social factory thesis’. This integrated article analyzes Marx and autonomist Marxist perspectives in relation to the advanced development of information technology. The approach contributes to the field of library and information science (LIS) by introducing Marx’s materialist conception of history to the study of social consciousness, information and information technology and materialist conceptions of information. The thesis statement posits that the total replacement of labour-power with machine-power leads to the development of what I refer to as the autonomous mode of production while network information technologies have become capital and the bourgeois state’s means of subsuming and producing ‘the social factory’. Case studies of Industry 4.0, Uber and smart cities support the thesis statement. The conclusion examines the social and political implications of capitalist development of the autonomous mode of production and capitalist and bourgeois state control of network information technology, offering instead the alternative path of communisation

Is it crowdsourcing or crowdsensing? An analysis of human participation in digital platforms in the age of surveillance capitalism

This paper contributes to studies on the dark side of digitization by relying on the concept of surveillance capitalism to analyze the role of individuals in digital organizations in performing activities known as crowdsourcing. Even though there is a discourse of empowerment and mutual interest exchanges between organizations and individuals through crowdsourcing, the transformation of computer systems into the so-called 4.0 era or 4.0 industry seems to have altered their role in digital organizations as well. These individuals began to be analyzed from the data they produce, and no longer from their desires, thus approaching the sensors of these organizations. Using the case study method, we analyze the contents of the Netflix, Facebook and Google platform home pages, as well as their terms of service and privacy policies. The way users participate in these platforms is analyzed, as well as the way their data are exploited, and the reason why this continuous exploitation of data occurs. We argue that this exploration alienates the empowering and participatory concept of crowdsourcing and brings the passive concept of individuals closer together as sensors, or crowdsensing. This approach, instead of treating individuals as singular, quantifies and categorizes their uniqueness to meet the controlling longings of hegemonic organizational structures, limited by capitalist discourse, or surveillance capitalism

Environmental Sustainability of Digitalization in Manufacturing: A Review

The rapid development and implementation of digitalization in manufacturing has enormous impact on the environment. It is still unclear whether digitalization has positive or negative environmental impact from applications in manufacturing. Therefore, this study aims to discuss the overall implications of digitalization on environmental sustainability through a literature study, within the scope of manufacturing (product design, production, transportation, and customer service). The analysis and categorization of selected articles resulted in two main findings: (1) Digitalization in manufacturing contributes positively to environmental sustainability by increasing resource and information efficiency as a result of applying Industry 4.0 technologies throughout the product lifecycle; (2) the negative environmental burden of digitalization is primarily due to increased resource and energy use, as well as waste and emissions from manufacturing, use, and disposal of the hardware (the technology lifecycle). Based on these findings, a lifecycle perspective is proposed, considering the environmental impacts from both the product and technology lifecycles. This study identified key implications of digitalization on environmental sustainability in manufacturing to increase awareness of both the positive and negative impacts of digitalization and thereby support decision making to invest in new digital technologies

Industry 4.0 and the future of manufacturing. Theoretical base and empirical analyses

A new industrial revolution \u2013 also called \u201cIndustry 4.0\u201d \u2013 is unfolding fueled by the introduction of broadly interconnected digital technologies, including the Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing. Many industries are witnessing the entrance of new players integrating new technologies into disruptive business models; incumbents are also urged to rethink how they operate against trends that are expected to further accelerate in the current pandemic situation. The overarching aim of the research presented in this doctoral dissertation is to investigate to what extent Industry 4.0 represents a fundamental challenge to existing paradigms and requires researchers to modify their theoretical frameworks to approach emerging issues. With this in mind, each chapter can be seen as a step forward in journey whereby some core issues come progressively into focus. The starting point is a conceptual work analyzing the phenomenon \u2013 \u201cIndustry 4.0\u201d and similar labels \u2013 and its underlying technological and non-technological components. As a second step \u2013 under the assumption of Industry 4.0 having paradigmatic properties comparable to previous industrial revolutions \u2013 potential new configurations of manufacturing value chains are investigated. Through a future-oriented expert study, eight scenarios are conceived identifying critical drivers to value chain configurations. Finally, one of these critical drivers \u2013 data sharing in inter-organizational relationships \uac\u2013 is investigated through the development of a multiple case study analysis in the automotive sector. The contribution of this dissertation to the academic debate is at least twofold. On the one hand, the research highlights the cornerstones of the phenomenon to make sense of its overarching features and building elements. This contributes to lay solid theoretical foundations needed to advance the understanding in the field. On the other hand, my empirical investigations suggest that several barriers counterbalance the technological drivers for change, posing significant questions as for when and how the future of manufacturing will materialize. Overall, an approach focused on understanding how technologies influence the assumptions behind the current reasoning might lead at a synthesis between \u201cold\u201d and \u201cnew\u201d elements in the Industry 4.0 phenomenon