Industry 4.0: Advances and Applications

The modern era of globalisation and resource scarcity leads to drastically increase in the intensity of competitive manufacturing, forcing companies to deliver the services on higher expectations with less staff and minimal resource usage. This situation brings forth a new industrial revolution: Industry 4.0. The implementation of these technologies enables firms to reduce the negative impact of their operations on their triple bottom line and improve efficiencies. This book provides a comprehensive guide to Industry 4.0 applications, not only introducing implementation aspects but also proposing a conceptual framework with respect to the design principles. In addition, it discusses the effects of Industry 4.0, which are reflected in new business models and workforce transformation. The book then examines the key technological advances that form the pillars of Industry 4.0 and explores their potential technical and economic benefits using examples of real-world applications. Moreover, manufacturers are increasingly realizing the value of the data that their processes and products generate. Such trends are transforming manufacturing industry to the next generation, namely Industry 4.0, which is based on the integration of information and communication technologies and industrial technology. The book provides a conceptual framework and roadmap for decision-makers for this transformation.

The book focuses to prepare a strategy for implementation of Industry 4.0 related technologies for small/medium sized industries by generating a framework for better utilisation of resources and to improve overall efficiency of the firm. Secondly it identifies the major challenges while implementing and post implementation of these technologies. An Industry 4.0 implementation approach has been developed to improve the accuracy of measuring SME technological maturity levels by utilising an Analytic hierarchy process to provide a weighting factor for key implementation characteristics (AHP). Weight factors were created to determine the most important aspects for small and medium-sized manufacturing businesses and to prioritise their transformation. At the conclusion of the maturity evaluation, radar charts are used to calculate a total maturity score for the enterprise as a whole, ranging from 0-100.