Retrofitting is a sustainable approach to improving the capabilities and extending the life of aging machine tools. Reusing the mechanical construction and replacing only the control electronics and ...software is a viable option to upgrade an aging machine tool to a cutting-edge level. During the last decades, the evolution of machine tools has focused on developing computer numerical control (CNC) rather than on mechanical construction. Retrofitting the CNC enables Industry 4.0 connectivity and improved usability sustainably, preserving finite raw material resources and reducing carbon emissions created during the casting process of heavy blank parts for physically large machine tools.
This publication presents methods to retrofit machine tools using open-source CNC software and a feasibility study after seven years of operation. Our study highlights retrofitting as more profitable than repairing an aging CNC and compares the sustainability of retrofitting or replacing the aging machine tool with a new unit. In conclusion, retrofitting enables sustainability, connectivity, and accuracy comparable to modern machine tools. Retrofitting also paves the way for using artificial intelligence to monitor and adapt to tool wear, chatter, and surface roughness.
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•The presented retrofit approach is scalable, enabling retrofitting large and small machine tools.•A feasibility study and usability survey of the CNC retrofit are presented.•A study on the carbon footprint of casting a frame for machine tools is presented.
The ever-growing concern of sustainability and survivability attracts academicians and practitioners to develop strategies and supply chain capabilities that cater to the challenges and helps in ...achieving the sustainability development goals. There is a need to develop a holistic model that facilitates understanding the relationships among supply chain practices, industry 4.0 technologies, and supply chain performance measures. Thus, this study examines the mediating effect of industry 4.0 technologies on supply chain management practices and supply chain performance measures. A survey-based data was collected from manufacturing organizations across India, and 361 complete responses were obtained. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was utilized for data analysis. This study has multiple contributions. First, the results indicate that the supply chain management practices influence the industry 4.0 technologies adoption. Second, the results also revealed that the industry 4.0 technologies significantly positively affect supply chain performance measures. Finally, industry 4.0 technologies mediated the relations between supply chain management practices and supply chain performance measures. Furthermore, the findings offer important insights into understanding the underlying mechanisms in successfully adopting and effectively using industry 4.0 technologies. The implications for theory and practices are also discussed.
•Examining the inter-relationships among SC, I4.0, and performance measures.•Data is collected from the Indian manufacturing sector.•Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the relationships.
•Industry 4.0 is transmuting the organizational structures of businesses.•Organization's ambidexterity can be critical for capability for Industry4.0.•Intellectual capital and technology's absorptive ...capacity improve organizational ambidexterity.•All dimensions of IC improve exploration and exploitation capabilities of an organization.•The study integrates the TAC with the IC-ambidexterity relationship.
Industry 4.0, which features the Internet of things (IoT), cloud computing, big-data, digitalization, and cyber-physical systems, is transforming the way businesses are being run. It is making the business processes more autonomous, automated and intelligent, and is transmuting the organizational structures of businesses by digitalizing their end-to-end business processes. In this context, balancing innovation and exploitation—organization's ambidexterity—while stepping into the fourth industrial revolution can be critical for organizational capability. This study examines the role of intellectual capital (IC)—human capital, structural capital and relational capital—in balancing the innovation and exploitation activities. It also examines the role of technology's absorptive capacity in the relationship between IC and organizational ambidexterity (OA). Data were collected from 217 small and medium enterprises from the manufacturing sector of Pakistan using a closed-ended Likert scale-based questionnaire. The study employs partial least square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. Findings indicate a profound influence of all dimensions of IC, both overall and by dimensions on organizations’ ambidexterity. Findings also exhibit a significant partial mediating role of technology absorptive capacity (TAC) in the association of IC and ambidexterity. The findings of the study emphasize the creation of specific policies aimed to develop IC of a firm, which in turn can enable a firm to maintain a balance between innovation and market exploitation activities. The study integrates the TAC with the IC-OA relationship, which is the novelty of the study.
Research on sustainable development is significantly influenced by the trade‐off between the economic, social and environmental performance of businesses. Industry 4.0 development is a key business ...priority due to the promise of exponential increase in productivity, time efficiencies and cost reduction. However, Industry 4.0 development has been slow. Notably, human actors remain central to Industry 4.0, while the social responsibility component of sustainable development is a key prerogative for industry, championed through the UN sustainable development goals and European Commission. Therefore, we evaluate human‐related impediments for Industry 4.0 and critically explore how human resource management (HRM) can overcome these barriers using a socially responsible orientation. First, we analyse the human‐related challenges to Industry 4.0 through a thematic literature review. Thereafter, through an integrative literature review of different research streams (Industry 4.0, HRM and social responsibility), we critically argue novel perspectives on how human resource practices can enable sustainable development of Industry 4.0 in a socially responsible manner. Herein, we address a crucial literature gap. Our findings reveal numerous people‐related barriers, including change resistance, digital skills gap, employment threats widening socio‐economic inequalities, lack of industry‐wide collaboration, leadership and organisational culture challenges. We show that HRM can be a crucial enabler for sustainable Industry 4.0 development through socially responsible human resource practices. These include strategic multistakeholder collaborations, holistic talent management, change leadership, inclusive knowledge sharing, sponsoring education research and codesigning curricula, smart technology for upskilling and retention and rewarding inclusive Industry 4.0 ideas. We conclude with future research directions.
Objective: This research aimed to analyze the implications of the use of additive manufacturing for sustainability in production processes. Methodology: The research was characterized as ...exploratory qualitative approach, which was carried out with 15 professionals from a Brazilian industry. Data collection was conducted through in-depth interviews, and analysis of the speech revealed insights into the environmental implications of additive manufacturing. Results and discussion: As a result, it was evidenced that despite the benefits offered by additive manufacturing for sustainability, such as reducing material waste and personalized production, there are significant challenges to be faced. Concern about the recyclability of materials used in 3D printing has been identified as a critical point, underlining the pressing need to develop more efficient and sustainable recycling processes to deal with the waste generated. In addition, mentioning the importance of considering the full life cycle of products emphasizes the complexity of environmental issues associated with additive manufacturing, requiring holistic approaches that consider environmental impacts at all stages of the process. Conclusion: Therefore, the need for an integrated approach to sustainability in additive manufacturing is highlighted, which not only maximizes the environmental benefits of the technology, but also proactively deals with emerging challenges, thus ensuring a positive impact on the environment.
Sensors play a crucial role in factory automation in making the system intellectual. Different types of sensors are available as per the suitability and applications; some of them are produced in ...mass and available in the market at affordable costs. The standard sensor types available are position sensors, pressure sensors, flow sensors, temperature sensors, and force sensors. They are used in many sectors, such as motorsport, medical, industry, aerospace, agriculture, and daily life. The objective of Industry 4.0 is to increase efficiency through automation. Sensors are vital components of Industry 4.0, allowing several transitions such as changes in positions, length, height, external and dislocations in industrial production facilities to be detected, measured, analysed, and processed. Smart factories will also enhance sustainability by tracking real-time output, and automated control systems will minimise potential factory maintenance costs. It can also be seen that digitalisation can improve production mobility, which gives advanced manufacturing firms a competitive advantage. This paper discusses sensors and their various types, along with significant capabilities for manufacturing. The step-by-step working Blocks and Quality Services of Sensors during implementation in Industry 4.0 are elaborated diagrammatically. Finally, we identified thirteen significant applications of sensors for Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 provides an excellent opportunity for the development of the sensor market across the globe. In Industry 4.0, sensors will enjoy higher acceptance rates and benefit from a fully enabled connecting and data exchange and logistics integration. In the coming years, sensor installations may grow in process management, automated production lines, and digital supply chains.
Recently, there have been great advances in internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) technologies for promoting electricity industrial upgrades and even allow the introduction of ...the fourth industrial revolution, namely, Smart Grid Industry (SGI) 4.0. The main functions of SGI4.0 are:
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•We propose a novel BMO-based dynamic clustering algorithm to balance the data traffic and energy consumption load evenly among clusters in the smart grid.•We propose an innovative BMO-based routing algorithm to solve energy consumption and QoS-aware reliable data transmission in the smart grid.•The performance evaluations show that EQRP has successfully minimized the end-to-end delay and has improved the other routing QoS performance metrics, such as packet delivery ratio, efficient memory utilization, residual energy, and throughput.
Recently, there have been great advances in internet of things (IoT) and wireless sensor networks (WSNs) leading to the fourth industrial revolution in power grid, namely, Smart Grid Industry 4.0 (SGI 4.0). In the Smart Grid Industry 4.0 framework, the WSNs have the potential to improve power grid efficiency by cable replacement, deployment flexibility, and cost reduction. However, the smart grid (SG) environment that the WSNs operate in is very challenging because of equipment noise, dust, heat, electromagnetic interference, multipath effects and fading, which make it difficult for current WSNs to provide reliable communication. For SGI 4.0 to come true, a WSN-based highly reliable communication infrastructure is essential for successful operation of the next-generation electricity power grids. To address this need, in this paper a novel dynamic clustering based energy efficient and quality-of-service (QoS)-aware routing protocol (called EQRP), which is inspired by the real behavior of the bird mating optimization (BMO), has been proposed. The proposed distributed scheme improves network reliability significantly and reduces excessive packets retransmissions for WSN-based SG applications. Performance results show that the proposed protocol has successfully reduced the end-to-end delay and has improved packet delivery ratio, memory utilization, residual energy, and throughput.
•Theory and application for Industry 4.0 supply chains is investigated.•Application of multi-agent technology in Industry 4.0 supply chain is studied.•A multi-agent approach for sustainable supplier ...evaluation is proposed.•The MAS approach is tested through a real-world case study implementation.•Future research opportunities in Industry 4.0 supply chains are articulated.
Advancements in information and communication systems offer immense opportunities for supply chain intelligence and autonomy establishing stepping stones for Industry 4.0 supply chains (SCs). As a crucial SC decision, sustainable supplier evaluation and selection process have been addressed abundantly in the previous literature. However, this process has not yet been realized within Industry 4.0 SCs where interconnection, real-time information transparency, technical assistance and decentralization of members of a physical system (i.e., supply chain members) are regarded as the main design principles. To narrow the identified gap, a Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) approach is proposed for addressing sustainable supplier evaluation and selection process to provide a proper communication channel, structured information exchange and visibility among suppliers and manufacturers. Furthermore, the application of MASs in this process and their natural applicability as one of the enabling technologies in moving towards Industry 4.0 SCs are investigated in detail. It is found that the proposed approach can help decision-makers inside manufacturing firms to make prompt decisions with less human interactions. The merit of the developed MAS is demonstrated through a real-world implementation on a medical device manufacturer. Finally, the limitations and advantages of the proposed approach are presented together with some remarks for future work.
Industry 4.0, known as the fourth technological transformation towards digital-physical systems in manufacturing, creates a disruptive impact on industries. Manufacturing companies, especially small ...and medium-sized ones, are facing various challenges and must constantly innovate to remain competitive. One way to innovate is by implementing new technologies into company processes. In this study, we investigate how technology, company and industry related factors are associated with the implementation of Industry 4.0 in SMEs. We collect data via a survey with a focus on Industry 4.0 in SMEs. The results indicate that knowledge and expected benefits of technology are the drivers for the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. They also show that companies with high levels of process automation and high product variety are more likely to implement Industry 4.0 technologies. Our study creates a better understanding of the status, challenges and plans within Industry 4.0 implementation in SMEs, which will support the development of SME-friendly manufacturing tools and systems and craft managers’ and policymakers’ understanding of Industry 4.0 technologies.
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