Architecture for Managing Autonomous Virtual Organizations in the Industry 4.0 Context

A Virtual Organization (VO) unites companies or independent individuals to achieve a shared, short-term objective by leveraging information technologies for communication and coordination in personalized product creation. Despite extensive research, existing VO management architectures lack alignment with Industry 4.0 standards, do not incorporate intelligent requirement-gathering mechanisms, and are not based on the RAMI 4.0 framework. These limitations hinder support for Autonomous Virtual Organizations (AVOs) in evaluation, risk management, and continuity, often excluding small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the partner selection process. This study proposes a comprehensive architecture for AVO management, grounded in ACODAT (Autonomous Cycle of Data Analysis Tasks) and RAMI 4.0 principles. The methodology includes a literature review, an architectural design, and a detailed specification of the ACODAT for the digital supply chain design. A prototype was developed and applied in a case study involving a virtual organization within an editorial consortium. Evaluation addressed core service performance, scalability of the batch selection algorithm, resource-use efficiency, and accessibility/SEO compliance. Benchmarking demonstrated that the prototype met or exceeded thresholds for scalability, efficiency, and accessibility, with minor performance deviations attributed to the testing environment. The results highlight significant time savings and improved automation in requirement identification, partner selection, and supply chain configuration, underscoring the architecture’s effectiveness and inclusivity.