Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a state-of-the-art review of the ongoing research on the Industry 4.0 phenomenon, highlight its key design principles and technology trends, identify its architectural design and offer a strategic roadmap that can serve manufacturers as a simple guide for the process of Industry 4.0 transition.

The study performs a systematic and content-centric review of literature based on a six-stage approach to identify key design principles and technology trends of Industry 4.0. The study further benefits from a comprehensive content analysis of the 178 documents identified, both manually and via IBM Watson’s natural language processing for advanced text analysis.

Industry 4.0 is an integrative system of value creation that is comprised of 12 design principles and 14 technology trends. Industry 4.0 is no longer a hype and manufacturers need to get on board sooner rather than later.

The strategic roadmap presented in this study can serve academicians and practitioners as a stepping stone for development of a detailed strategic roadmap for successful transition from traditional manufacturing into the Industry 4.0. However, there is no one-size-fits-all strategy that suits all businesses or industries, meaning that the Industry 4.0 roadmap for each company is idiosyncratic, and should be devised based on company’s core competencies, motivations, capabilities, intent, goals, priorities and budgets.

The first step for transitioning into the Industry 4.0 is the development of a comprehensive strategic roadmap that carefully identifies and plans every single step a manufacturing company needs to take, as well as the timeline, and the costs and benefits associated with each step. The strategic roadmap presented in this study can offer as a holistic view of common steps that manufacturers need to undertake in their transition toward the Industry 4.0.

The study is among the first to identify, cluster and describe design principles and technology trends that are building blocks of the Industry 4.0. The strategic roadmap for Industry 4.0 transition presented in this study is expected to assist contemporary manufacturers to understand what implementing the Industry 4.0 really requires of them and what challenges they might face during the transition process.

Increased digitalization has influenced various business activities including companies’ business models (BMs) by enabling various new forms of cooperation between companies and leading to new product and service offerings as well as new forms of company relationships with customers and employees. At the same time, this digitalization has put pressure on companies to reflect on their current strategy and explore new business opportunities systematically and at early stages. While research on digitalization in the context of BMs is now gaining increased attention, a research gap still exists in this field since the number of empirical insights is limited. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Qualitative empirical data collected from 12 key informants working in two distinctive industries, the media and automotive industries, were collected. An investigation was carried out to examine the differences and similarities among how digitalization influences a company’s value creation, proposition and capture, as well as how firms cope with challenges presented by increased digitalization.

The findings of the study show that, whilst digitalization is generally considered to be important, the value proposition itself as also the position in the value network determine the perceived available options for business model innovation (BMI) by digitalization. Moreover, the organizational capacities and employee competences were identified as future challenges that will be faced by both industries.

The findings of this study have revealed that representatives of the media and automotive industries perceive both the pressures and opportunities of digitalization regarding BMI; its application and exploitation, however, remain challenging. This study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by providing empirical insights in the context of digitalization and BMI.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how rising technologies from Industry 4.0 can be integrated with circular economy (CE) practices to establish a business model that reuses and recycles wasted material such as scrap metal or e-waste.

The qualitative research method was deployed in three stages. Stage 1 was a literature review of concepts, successful factors and barriers related to the transition towards a CE along with sustainable supply chain management, smart production systems and additive manufacturing (AM). Stage 2 comprised a conceptual framework to integrate and evaluate the synergistic potential among these concepts. Finally, stage 3 validated the proposed model by collecting rich qualitative data based on semi-structured interviews with managers, researchers and professors of operations management to gather insightful and relevant information.

The outcome of the study is the recommendation of a circular model to reuse scrap electronic devices, integrating web technologies, reverse logistics and AM to support CE practices. Results suggest a positive influence from improving business sustainability by reinserting waste into the supply chain to manufacture products on demand.

The impact of reusing wasted materials to manufacture new products is relevant to minimising resource consumption and negative environmental impacts. Furthermore, it avoids hazardous materials ending up in landfills or in the oceans, seriously threatening life in ecosystems. In addition, reuse of wasted material enables the development of local business networks that generate jobs and improve economic performance.

First, the impact of reusing materials to manufacture new products minimises resource consumption and negative environmental impacts. The circular model also encourages keeping hazardous materials that seriously threaten life in ecosystems out of landfills and oceans. For this study, it was found that most urban waste is plastic and cast iron, leaving room for improvement in increasing recycling of scrap metal and similar materials. Second, the circular business model promotes a culture of reusing and recycling and motivates the development of collection and processing techniques for urban waste through the use of three-dimensional (3D) printing technologies and Industry 4.0. In this way, the involved stakeholders are focused on the technical parts of recycling and can be better dedicated to research, development and innovation because many of the processes will be automated.

The purpose of this study was to explore how Industry 4.0 technologies are integrated with CE practices. This allows for the proposal of a circular business model for recycling waste and delivering new products, significantly reducing resource consumption and optimising natural resources. In a first stage, the circular business model can be used to recycle electronic scrap, with the proposed integration of web technologies, reverse logistics and AM as a technological platform to support the model. These have several environmental, sociotechnical and economic implications for society.

The sociotechnical aspects are directly impacted by the circular smart production system (CSPS) management model, since it creates a new culture of reuse and recycling techniques for urban waste using 3D printing technologies, as well as Industry 4.0 concepts to increase production on demand and automate manufacturing processes. The tendency of the CSPS model is to contribute to deployment CE in the manufacture of new products or parts with AM approaches, generating a new path of supply and demand for society.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the managerial practices that companies can implement in order to design a circular economy business model and how companies can create and capture value from a circular economy business model.

The paper adopts a single case study methodology with semi-structured interviews and company, supplier, and manufacturing site visits, conducted in a small-to-medium-size Italian company operating in the office supply industry.

The theoretical setting maps a set of managerial practices for a circular economy business model and sets the research gaps and questions in a research framework designed along three main dimensions: value network, customer value proposition and interface, and managerial commitment. Then, through an empirical analysis, the findings reveal that the proposed dimensions are interdependent and reinforce each other. Moreover, the managerial commitment as moderating factor between the value network and the customer value proposition and interface dimensions is identified as essential for reaching the intended goals of circular economy business models.

This study maximizes the depth of the phenomenon under investigation by leveraging a single case study methodology, which ideally helps in a theory-testing approach as in the present case. Future research opportunities could be found in qualitative and quantitative studies to increase the generalizability of the findings of this paper.

The paper presents a set of relevant managerial practices for circular economy business models that can be used by managers who have the will to embrace in practice circular economy principles to support the design, change, or upgrade of the business model of companies within which they operate.

An interdisciplinary approach that integrates the research streams of circular economy, social psychology, organizational behavior, and business model design has been pursued to test the theoretical setting and the research framework for circular economy business models in a real-world context.

The purpose of this paper is to aim at identifying the relationships between Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies and Lean Manufacturing (LM) practices.

A systematic literature review was conducted, in which 93 studies were analyzed according to their content and contextualization level.

In total, 9 I4.0 technologies and 14 LM practices were identified and categorized according to different levels of both value stream application and synergy. From the 126 pairwise relationships, 24 were classified as being of high synergy (e.g. relationship between Cyber-Physical Systems and value stream mapping), revealing the existence of a positive interaction between LPs and I4.0 technologies toward the achievement of a higher operational performance. Further, three future research opportunities were suggested: to validate the proposed synergies among LPs and I4.0 technologies; to distinguish the effects of relationships on all levels of flow; and to examine the effect of such relationships on operational performance.

With the emergence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the specificities on the relationship between LM and I4.0 still need further investigation. This paper provides a better understanding of existing literature related to I4.0, LM, and their relationship, as well as pointing out research gaps to encourage future works.

Although the industrial application of drones is increasing quickly, there is a scarcity of applications in manufacturing. The purpose of this paper is to explore current and potential applications of drones in manufacturing, examine the opportunities and challenges involved and propose a research agenda.

The paper reports the result of an extensive qualitative investigation into an emerging phenomenon. The authors build on the literature on advanced manufacturing technologies. Data collected through in-depth interviews with 66 drone experts from 56 drone vendors and related services are analyzed using an inductive research design.

Drones represent a promising AMT that is expected to be used in several applications in manufacturing in the next few years. This paper proposes a typology of drone applications in manufacturing, explains opportunities and challenges involved and develops a research agenda. The typology categorizes four types of applications based on the drones’ capabilities to “see,” “sense,” “move” and “transform.”

The proposed research agenda offers a guide for future research on drones in manufacturing. There are many research opportunities in the domains of industrial engineering, technology development and behavioral operations.

Guidance on current and promising potentials of drones in manufacturing is provided to practitioners. Particularly interesting applications are those that help manufacturers “see” and “sense” data in their factories. Applications that “move” or “transform” objects are scarcer, and they make sense only in special cases in very large manufacturing facilities.

The application of drones in manufacturing is in its infancy, but is foreseen to grow rapidly over the next decade. This paper presents the first academically rigorous analysis of potential applications of drones in manufacturing. An original and theory-informed typology for drone applications is a timely contribution to the nascent literature. The research agenda presented assists the establishment of a new stream of literature on drones in manufacturing.

Sustainable end-of-life (Sus-EoL) practices can be achieved through manufacturing of sustainable products, and recovery and recycling after the use phase. To achieve Sus-EoL, the manufacturing organizations should handle their products after their EoL. The recovery of used products is achieved through the design of the collection location. However, the first step is to understand and identify the barriers (e.g. lack of awareness among people, lack of technology, etc.) which prevent the implementation of Sus-EoL practices. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper is about the 18 barriers responsible for the poor success of Sus-EoL practices of used plastic parts. By applying the DEMATEL method and by incorporating experts’ knowledge, a prominence and causal relationship diagram was developed through which the influential strength among barriers was studied.

The α value is computed as 0.068, and the values lower than α were eliminated to obtain the digraph. Poor curbside pick is identified as the most dominant barrier in implementation of Sus-EoL practices in plastic parts with an influential score of 3.96.

The research is conducted in the Indian scenario which could be extended to global context by selecting the suitable barriers.

The results from the study can be used by the managers of organizations to enhance the possibility of Sus-EoL practices by incorporating suitable strategies which is the significant contribution of this study.

In the past, few authors discussed about the barriers of Sus-EoL practices; however, the analysis of complex interrelationship does not exist. Thus, the global and group interrelationship has been studied which is expected to pave way for future research in the direction of elimination of barriers and so on.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on how representative the literature is in identifying industrial practice to designing product‐service systems (PSSs).

The paper analyses literature to report on the existing approaches used to design PSSs. A single exploratory case study approach, based on semi‐structured interviews and archival data analysis, was used to understand an existing product‐service organisation's approach to designing PSSs. A total of 12 senior managers were interviewed from a cross section of the organisation, to gain multiple perspectives on the PSS design process and ten company reports were analysed.

The research has identified that the PSS design process reported by literature is not representative, lacking inputs and outputs to some phases and feedback. In total, 18 inputs and 11 outputs have been identified from the case study that are not reported by the literature. These create five feedback loops within the PSS design process used by the case study organisation. This suggests that the PSS design process is cyclic and iterative and not sequential, as reported by existing literature.

This research is based on a single‐case study approach, limiting the ability to generalise findings, and does not provide a complete PSS design approach.

This research compares literature against industrial practice to PSS design, presenting insight to aid practitioner's design PSSs.

This paper fills a gap in the servitization and PSS literatures; evaluating the approaches reported by literature against existing industrial practice.

The purpose of this paper is to raise awareness among manufacturing researchers and practitioners of the potential of Bayesian networks (BNs) to enhance decision making in those parts of the manufacturing domain where uncertainty is a key characteristic. In doing so, the paper describes the development of an intelligent decision support system (DSS) to help operators in Motorola to diagnose and correct faults during the process of product system testing.

The intelligent (DSS) combines BNs and an intelligent user interface to produce multi‐media advice for operators.

Surveys show that the system is effective in considerably reducing fault correction times for most operators and most fault types and in helping inexperienced operators to approach the performance levels of experienced operators.

Such efficiency improvements are of obvious value in manufacturing. In this particular case, additional benefit was derived when the product testing facility was moved from the UK to China as the system was able to help the new operators to get close to the historical performance level of experienced operators.