Special section Industry 4.0: Challenges for the future in manufacturing

International audienceThe sensing enterprise is a digital business innovation concept making Cyber-Physical Systems, service-oriented architectures and advanced human-computer interactions converge, supporting a more agile, flexible, and proactive management of unexpected events in today’s global value networks. In essence, it concerns the adoption of future Internet technologies in virtual enterprises. Translating this concept to a general approach to smart systems (smart manufacturing, smart cities, smart logistics, etc.), requires new capabilities by next-generation information systems to perform sensing, modelling, and interpretation of “any” signal from the real world, thus providing the systems with higher flexibility and possibilities for reconfiguration (Panetto et al. 2016). Intuitively, a sensing system requires resources and machineries to be constantly monitored, configured, and easily controlled by human operators. All these functions, and much more indeed, are now implemented by the so-called (Industrial) Internet of Things or Cyber-Physical Systems. With the advent of the new cyber-physical system design paradigm, the number and diversity of systems that need to work together in the future enterprises have significantly increased (Weichhart et al. 2016). This trend highlights the need to shift from the classic central control of systems, towards systems interoperability as a capability to control, sense, and perceive distributed and heterogeneous systems and their environments, as well as to purposefully and socially act upon their perceptions. Such a shift could have important consequences on the future architecture design of the control of these systems. The emergence of cloud-based technologies will also have a significant impact on the design and implementation of cyber-physical systems; using such novel technologies, collaborative engineering practises will increase globally, thus enabling a new generation of small-scale industrial organizations to function in an information-centric manner and enabling industry 4.0 transformations (Cimini, et al, 2017). The potential of such technologies in fostering a leaner and more agile approach towards engineering is very high. Engineers and engineering organizations no longer have to be restricted to the availability of advanced processing capabilities, as they can adopt a ‘pay as you go’ approach, which will enable them to access and use software resources for engineering activities from any remote location in the world

Eco‐Holonic 4.0 Circular Business Model to Conceptualize Sustainable Value Chain Towards Digital Transition

The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize a circular business model based on an Eco-Holonic Architecture, through the integration of circular economy and holonic principles. A conceptual model is developed to manage the complexity of integrating circular economy principles, digital transformation, and tools and frameworks for sustainability into business models. The proposed architecture is multilevel and multiscale in order to achieve the instantiation of the sustainable value chain in any territory. The architecture promotes the incorporation of circular economy and holonic principles into new circular business models. This integrated perspective of business model can support the design and upgrade of the manufacturing companies in their respective industrial sectors. The conceptual model proposed is based on activity theory that considers the interactions between technical and social systems and allows the mitigation of the metabolic rift that exists between natural and social metabolism. This study contributes to the existing literature on circular economy, circular business models and activity theory by considering holonic paradigm concerns, which have not been explored yet. This research also offers a unique holonic architecture of circular business model by considering different levels, relationships, dynamism and contextualization (territory) aspects

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

A review of the meanings and the implications of the Industry 4.0 concept

The global industrial landscape has changed deeply in the last few years due to successive technological developments and innovations in manufacturing processes. The Industry 4.0 concept has emerged and the academic literature has paid an increased attention to this topic, which remains non-consensual or ill defined. In this research, a literature review is made to understand this concept in its technological dimension, and to comprehend its impacts. This new industrial paradigm brings together the digital and physical worlds through the Cyber-Physical Systems enhanced by Internet of Things and it is expected that this novel has consequences on industry, markets and economy, improving production processes and increasing productivity, affecting the whole product lifecycle, creating new business models, changing the work environment and restructuring the labor market. Therefore, this paper focuses on Industry 4.0 concept and contributes for its clarification and further understanding about the importance and implications of this complex technological system.This work has been supported by COMPETE: POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007043 and FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia within the Project Scope: UID/CEC/00319/2013.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Effect of Industry 4.0 on Education Systems: An Outlook

Congreso Universitario de Innovación Educativa En las Enseñanzas Técnicas, CUIEET (26º. 2018. Gijón