The Application of Industry 4.0 Technologies in Sustainable Logistics: A Systematic Literature Review (2012-2020) to Explore Future Research Opportunities

Nowadays, the market competition becomes increasingly fierce due to diversified customer needs, stringent environmental requirements, and global competitors. One of the most important factors for companies to not only survive but also thrive in today’s competitive market is their logistics performance. This paper aims, through a systematic literature analysis of 115 papers from 2012 to 2020, at presenting quantitative insights and comprehensive overviews of the current and future research landscapes of sustainable logistics in the Industry 4.0 era. The results show that Industry 4.0 technologies provide opportunities for improving the economic efficiency, environmental performance, and social impact of logistics sectors. However, several challenges arise with this technological transformation, i.e., trade-offs among different sustainability indicators, unclear benefits, lifecycle environmental impact, inequity issues, and technology maturity. Thus, to better tackle the current research gaps, future suggestions are given to focus on the balance among different sustainability indicators through the entire lifecycle, human-centric technological transformation, system integration and digital twin, semi-autonomous transportation solutions, smart reverse logistics, and so forth

Indirect impact of landslide hazards on transportation infrastructure

This thesis examines the indirect impact of natural hazards on infrastructure networks. It addresses several key themes and issues for hazard assessment, network modelling and risk assessment using the case study of landslides impacting the national road network in Scotland, United Kingdom. The research follows four distinct stages. First, a landslide susceptibility model is developed using a database of landslide occurrences, spatial data sets and logistic regression. The model outputs indicate the terrain characteristics that are associated with increased landslide potential, including critical slope angles and south westerly aspects associated with increased rates of solar irradiance and precipitation. The results identify the hillslopes and road segments that are most prone to disruption by landslides and these indicate that 40 % (1,700 / 4,300 km) of Scotland s motorways and arterial roads (i.e. strategic road network) are susceptible to landslides and this is above previous assessments. Second, a novel user-equilibrium traffic model is developed using UK Census origin-destination tables. The traffic model calculates the additional travel time and cost (i.e. indirect impacts) caused by network disruptions due to landslide events. The model is applied to calculate the impact of historic scenarios and for sets of plausible landslide events generated using the landslide susceptibility model. Impact assessments for historic scenarios are 29 to 83 % greater than previous, including £1.2 million of indirect impacts over 15 days of disruption at the A83 Rest and Be Thankful landslide October 2007. The model results indicate that the average impact of landslides is £64 k per day of disruption, and up to £130 k per day on the most critical road segments in Scotland. In addition to identifying critical road segments with both high impact and high susceptibility to landslides, the study indicates that the impact of landslides is concentrated away from urban centres to the central and north-west regions of Scotland that are heavily reliant on road and haulage-based industries such as seasonal tourism, agriculture and craft distilling. The third research element is the development of landslide initiation thresholds using weather radar data. The thresholds classify the rainfall conditions that are most commonly associated with landslide occurrence in Scotland, improving knowledge of the physical initiation processes and their likelihood. The thresholds are developed using a novel optimal-point threshold selection technique, high resolution radar and new rain variables that provide spatio-temporally normalised thresholds. The thresholds highlight the role of the 12-day antecedent hydrological condition of soils as a precursory factor in controlling the rain conditions that trigger landslides. The new results also support the observation that landslides occur more frequently in the UK during the early autumn and winter seasons when sequences or clustering of multiple cyclonic-storm systems is common in periods lasting 5 to 15 days. Fourth, the three previous elements are combined to evaluate the landslide hazard of the strategic road segments and a prototype risk assessment model is produced - a catastrophe model. The catastrophe model calculates the annual average loss and aggregated exceedance probability of losses due to the indirect impact of landslides in Scotland. Beyond application to cost-benefit analyses for landslide mitigation efforts, the catastrophe model framework is applicable to the study of other natural hazards (e.g. flooding), combinations of hazards, and other infrastructure networks

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Vis-à-vis Communication? Digital and Physical Space s of Interaction in the Contemporary City

ICT is an important social medium which influences the concepts of space and place. It allows creative participation of users who act as consumers of places, active contributors in the process of urban design or critics. The first phase of the ICT development in cities was focused on providing and assuring low-cost Internet access which would enable free connectivity within a community, at home or work (Loader and Keeble, 2004). Gradually, the relationship between ICT, community and cities has been continuously analyzed and elaborated emphasizing new topics and targeting design and meaningful application of ICT within communities. Simultaneously, the role of digital networks and flows has been recognized in many fields of urban reality, fostering civic engagement (Pigg, 2001) and supporting a sustainable social, cultural or economic development of cities and their spaces. Nowadays, people interact in both physical and virtual realm, gathering formally or informally in order to exchange information and knowledge, disseminate practice and experiences, or erase different kinds of limitations. While the main role of open public spaces is to provide social contacts between people, remaining the place where they can rest, recreate and enjoy the environment, e-networks have opened additional channels of communication and diffusion. Allowing an extended (spatial and temporal) community upgrading and interchange, the digital surrounding has become a new tool and a setting for contemporary activities demanding continuous development and synchronization with global challenges and needs. Considering the ambiguous nature of modern cities and their public spaces, the paper will tackle several questions. What is the future of open public spaces? Can virtual space take on the role of the physical one? Could we use social networks as additional and dynamic tools for fulfilling the main tasks of open public spaces? What are the recent innovations introduced into cities in order to support increasing number of communication modes? How they affect urban modelling - both on the physical and the virtual level of urban life

Reconfiguring global pharmaceutical value networks through targeted technology interventions

Targeting a series of advanced manufacturing technology (AMT) ‘interventions’ provides the potential for significant step changes across the pharmaceutical value chain, from early stage ‘system discovery’ and clinical trials, through to novel service supply models. This research explores future value network configurations which, when aligned with disruptive shifts in technology (process and digital), may enable alternative routes to medicines production and the delivery of additional value to ‘end-users’, i.e. patients and health care providers. We draw on a categorisation of AMTs that may enable a shift from the traditional ‘batch’ and centralised manufacturing paradigm of ‘make-to-stock’, towards more re-distributed ‘continuous’ manufacturing and ‘make-to-order’ models. Despite reported benefits in the academic literature (e.g. reduced footprints, improved quality, enhanced flexibility and inventory savings), current adoption rates of continuous technologies in this sector remain low (c. 5%). This paper presents new data sources, in our study of AMT adoption in a global pharmaceutical context – assessing the barriers to implementation, and the pathways to delivering future continuous manufacturing scenarios. Our findings capture the high level of disparity in viewpoints, highlighting the uncertainties and transformational challenges ahead – in terms of opportunity areas, technological readiness and a future vision for the sector, as a whole

Advanced Information Services for Cognitive Behaviour of Travellers

Smart transportation is essentially leveraged by decision making of humans, especially behaviour of travellers. The behaviour (movements; information management) and the advanced information services are mutually entangled. The travellers and the ICT (integrated infocommunication systems of transportation) is considered as an undecomposable set, which has new cognitive capabilities. These capabilities are to be used for mobility related decisions in order to improve sustainability of transportation. In order to reveal, how these capabilities coelvolve with smart transportation comprehensive system and process-oriented scientific research had been launched. Herewith the basic definitions, the architecture and the operation of the integrated system of smart transportation and the model of the smart traveller have been presented following top-down approach of system engineering

Bio-based building skin

This book provides a compendium of material properties, demonstrates several successful examples of bio-based materials’ application in building facades, and offers ideas for new designs and novel solutions. It features a state-of-the-art review, addresses the latest trends in material selection, assembling systems, and innovative functions of facades in detail. Selected case studies on buildings from diverse locations are subsequently presented to demonstrate the successful implementation of various biomaterial solutions, which defines unique architectural styles and building functions. The structures, morphologies and aesthetic impressions related to bio-based building facades are discussed from the perspective of art and innovation; essential factors influencing the performance of materials with respect to functionality and safety are also presented. Special emphasis is placed on assessing the performance of a given facade throughout the service life of a building, and after its end. The book not only provides an excellent source of technical and scientific information, but also contributes to public awareness by demonstrating the benefits to be gained from the proper use of bio-based materials in facades. As such, it will appeal to a broad audience including architects, engineers, designers and building contractors. ; Presents case-studies and latest trends in material selection, assembling systems, and innovative functions of facades Discusses structure morphologies and aesthetic impressions related to bio-based building facades Highlights factors influencing performance of facades, with a special focus on service life of the buildin

Investigating social media spatiotemporal transferability for transport

Social Media have increasingly provided data about the movement of people in cities making them useful in understanding the daily life of people in different geographies. Particularly useful for travel analysis is when Social Media users allow (voluntarily or not) tracing their movement using geotagged information of their communication with these online platforms. In this paper we use geotagged tweets from 10 cities in the European Union and United States of America to extract spatiotemporal patterns, study differences and commonalities among these cities, and explore the nature of user location recurrence. The analysis here shows the distinction between residents and tourists is fundamental for the development of city-wide models. Identification of repeated rates of location (recurrence) can be used to define activity spaces. Differences and similarities across different geographies emerge from this analysis in terms of local distributions but also in terms of the worldwide reach among the cities explored here. The comparison of the temporal signature between geotagged and non-geotagged tweets also shows similar temporal distributions that capture in essence city rhythms of tweets and activity spaces

Unique Opportunities of Island States to Transition to a Low-Carbon Mobility System

Small islands developing states (SIDS) contribute minuscule proportions to global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and energy consumption, but are highly exposed to climate change impacts, in particular to extreme weather events and sea-level rise. However, there is little research on potential decarbonization trajectories unique to SIDS. Here, we argue that insular topology, scale, and economy are distinctive characteristics of SIDS that facilitate overcoming carbon lock-in. We investigate these dimensions for the three islands of Barbados, Fiji, and Mauritius. We find that insular topologies and small scale offer an opportunity for both public transit corridors and rapid electrification of car fleets. The tourism sector enables local decision-makers and investors to experiment with shared mobility and to induce spillover effects by educating tourists about new mobility options. Limited network effects, and the particular economy thus enables to overcome carbon lock-in. We call for targeted investments into SIDS to transition insular mobility systems towards zero carbon in 2040. The decarbonization of SIDS is not only needed as a mitigation effort, but also as a strong signal to the global community underlining that a zero-carbon future is possible.DFG, 414044773, Open Access Publizieren 2019 - 2020 / Technische Universität Berli