A framework for smart production-logistics systems based on CPS and industrial IoT

Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has received increasing attention from both academia and industry. However, several challenges including excessively long waiting time and a serious waste of energy still exist in the IIoT-based integration between production and logistics in job shops. To address these challenges, a framework depicting the mechanism and methodology of smart production-logistics systems is proposed to implement intelligent modeling of key manufacturing resources and investigate self-organizing configuration mechanisms. A data-driven model based on analytical target cascading is developed to implement the self-organizing configuration. A case study based on a Chinese engine manufacturer is presented to validate the feasibility and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework and the developed method. The results show that the manufacturing time and the energy consumption are reduced and the computing time is reasonable. This paper potentially enables manufacturers to deploy IIoT-based applications and improve the efficiency of production-logistics systems

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Sustainable Development Report: Blockchain, the Web3 & the SDGs

This is an output paper of the applied research that was conducted between July 2018 - October 2019 funded by the Austrian Development Agency (ADA) and conducted by the Research Institute for Cryptoeconomics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business and RCE Vienna (Regional Centre of Expertise on Education for Sustainable Development).Series: Working Paper Series / Institute for Cryptoeconomics / Interdisciplinary Researc

Contextual impacts on industrial processes brought by the digital transformation of manufacturing: a systematic review

The digital transformation of manufacturing (a phenomenon also known as "Industry 4.0" or "Smart Manufacturing") is finding a growing interest both at practitioner and academic levels, but is still in its infancy and needs deeper investigation. Even though current and potential advantages of digital manufacturing are remarkable, in terms of improved efficiency, sustainability, customization, and flexibility, only a limited number of companies has already developed ad hoc strategies necessary to achieve a superior performance. Through a systematic review, this study aims at assessing the current state of the art of the academic literature regarding the paradigm shift occurring in the manufacturing settings, in order to provide definitions as well as point out recurring patterns and gaps to be addressed by future research. For the literature search, the most representative keywords, strict criteria, and classification schemes based on authoritative reference studies were used. The final sample of 156 primary publications was analyzed through a systematic coding process to identify theoretical and methodological approaches, together with other significant elements. This analysis allowed a mapping of the literature based on clusters of critical themes to synthesize the developments of different research streams and provide the most representative picture of its current state. Research areas, insights, and gaps resulting from this analysis contributed to create a schematic research agenda, which clearly indicates the space for future evolutions of the state of knowledge in this field

Innovative Solution Approach for Controlling Access to Visibility Data in Open Food Supply Chains

Visibility data (providing details about supply chain activities in e.g. production, logistics, and quality processes) is of highly sensitive nature – not just in the food sector, but also beyond. Amongst other things, unauthorized data access can be (mis)used to uncover supply chain relationships, volumes, and other business context information. At the same time, it becomes increasingly important to share visibility data with trading partners, e.g. to meet customer requirements and legal obligations. So far, it is not a trivial matter to access or even discover that data, which is often stored in numerous distributed databases.A possible means to overcome this predicament is a Discovery Service (DS), which has knowledge of the parties owning information about specific objects (e.g. product batches) and can provide pointers to the actual data sources to authorized clients while leaving no opportunity to misuse accessible data. It is important to note that a DS itself does not contain actual visibility data, but only references to it. Yet, even the knowledge that party A, B and C have information about a specific product is still sensitive as the querying client would be able to reveal the flow of goods and may take advantage of that knowledge. For instance, he could identify his supplier’s upstream vendor and, for the sake of saving costs, try to procure products directly from that upstream vendor rather than from his previous supplier. Hence, a DS should provide the ability to prevent such scenarios if it strives to achieve a high level of acceptance.A key enabler for a DS is a trust-inspiring means to ascertain whether a querying party is actually part of a given chain of custody (CoC). In conjunction with a set of rules previously defined by the respective data owners, the DS is then able to decide which service addresses (if at all) can be provided in the message response to the query client. Afterwards, the querying party can gather detailed information about a specific object by querying the indicated data sources. In this context, our paper addresses the following research question: How can a DS ascertain if and to which extent a trading partner, whether known or not, is entitled to get pointers to visibility data stored in distributed repositories while ensuring privacy of the data owners?In pursuing this research question, we first provide the relevant background including the current state of the art. Second, we explain and discuss the solution approach and complete our paper by outlining the solution we are going to realize in the course of the research project ‘FoodAuthent’ (funded by the German Ministry of Food and Agriculture).

Design of a System for Information Transfer to Reduce Administrative Burdens in the Agrifood Sector

Agricultural policies are widening the scope to contribute to environmental objectives, such as the Green Deal, Paris Climate Agreement and sustainable development goals. This leads to new monitoring and data needs. To fulfil these data needs, it is crucial to explore the opportunities and limitations of new technologies. This paper analyses the information flows within the agricultural sector and its potential to contribute to future information needs.Farmers act within a network of commercial and governmental organisations. The information exchange with these organisations could increasingly occur through digital means, but in reality, there is still a lot of data transfer on paper or in PDF format. This implies information loss. Digital information flows provide a wealth of information for policy evaluation and monitoring and have the potential to reduce transaction costs. Combining data from different sources (open data like earth observation data, data from on-farm sensor networks, accountancy data like invoices and data from food chain platforms) concerning a single farm is an even bigger challenge than the transfer from paper to digital. Based on these observations a list of requirements for a future solution for information transfer is defined.Based on these requirements, this paper presents the design of a System for Information Transfer to Reduce Administrative burdens (SITRA) to combine data from different sources and give farmers control who can access these data. SITRA will address farmers’ needs to reduce the growing administrative burden placed on them by governments and the food chain sustainability and food safety schemes, especially if data would be stored in a digital farm locker and a farmer could voluntary give his consent through an authorisation mechanism to share specific data with his business partners, paying agency, statistical organisation and Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN, an EU monitoring system for the Common Agricultural Policy). A platform that provides such data lockers could also provide benchmark facilities and a tool for common (open source) maintenance of coding systems.The paper proposes some follow-up activities to test this design. As a pilot, organic farmers that participate in the Dutch Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) will be recruited to co-develop and test the design principles of the system. Given trust issues around data management, the design of the governance and business model of the system are key issues in the follow-up. This group is chosen as organic certification and FADN are the most data-intensive monitoring and evaluation tools in the CAP. The Farm to Fork communication proposes to enlarge the organic sector to 25% of the agricultural area. A new organic control regulation, based on a risk assessment approach is about to be implemented. The Farm to Fork communication also proposes to link the FADN much more with the Farm Advisory System and to extend it to a Farm Sustainability Data Network

Innovation-Based Competition and the Dynamics of Design in Upstream Suppliers

Although the evolution of the design process in car manufacturers and their first-tier suppliers has been studied extensively, the situation is different for upstream industries, usually chemical and steel firms. This article focuses on such upstream suppliers situation based on an interactive research with a major european steel-maker group, Usinor. In its first part, it demonstrate that innovation-based competition is a significant issue for companies situated upstream from end-product manufacturers. The accelerating pace of the (re)design of end products downstream is increasing opportunities for the substitution of raw materials. The importance of this issue is obscured, however, by considerable inertia in the spread of innovations through the sector. Then the article characterises the specificities of implementing an innovative design strategy due to the activity and position of the firm in the industrial chain. The conclusions will make it clear that design models developed for car-manufacturers and first tear suppliers are in many ways unsuitable for this different context. We finally propose 5 principles to evaluate and define a innovation management system in upstream suppliers." innovation";" management";" design organisation";"steel industry"