Abstract Industry is currently undergoing a transformation towards full digitalization and intelligentization of manufacturing processes. Visionary but quite realistic concepts such as the Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, Cloud-based Manufacturing and Smart Manufacturing are drivers of the so called Fourth Industrial Revolution which is commonly referred to as Industry 4.0. Although a common agreement exists on the necessity for technological advancement of production technologies and business models in the sense of Industry 4.0, a major obstacle lies in the perceived complexity and abstractness which partly hinders its quick transformation into industrial practice. To overcome these burdens, we suggest a Scenario-based Industry 4.0 Learning Factory concept that we are currently planning to implement in Austria's first Industry 4.0 Pilot Factory. The concept is built upon a tentative competency model for Industry 4.0 and the use of scenarios for problem-oriented learning of future production engineering.
The sociological theory that the loss of the support of objectively established religion, the dissolution of the last remnants of precapitalism, together with technological and social differentiation or specialization, have led to cultural chaos is disproved every day; for culture now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part. Even the aesthetic activities of political opposites are one in their enthusiastic obedience to the rhythm of the iron system. The decorative industrial management buildings and exhibition centers in authoritarian countries are much the same as anywhere else. The huge gleaming towers that shoot up everywhere are outward signs of the ingenious planning of international concerns, toward which the unleashed entrepreneurial system (whose monuments are a mass of gloomy houses and business premises in grimy, spiritless cities) was already hastening. Even now the older houses just outside the concrete city centers look like slums, and the new bungalows on the outskirts are at one with the flimsy structures of world fairs in their praise of technical progress and their built-in demand to be discarded after a short while like empty food cans. Yet the city housing projects designed to perpetuate the individual as a supposedly independent unit in a small hygienic dwelling make him all the more subservient to his adversary—the absolute power of capitalism. Because the inhabitants, as producers and as consumers, are drawn into the center in search of work and pleasure, all the living units crystallize into well-organized complexes. The striking unity of microcosm and macrocosm presents men with a model of their culture: the false identity of the general and the particular. Under monopoly all mass culture is identical, and the lines of its artificial framework begin to show through. The people at the top are no longer so interested in concealing monopoly: as its violence becomes more open, so its power grows. Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art. The truth that they are just business is made into an ideology in order to justify the rubbish they deliberately produce. They call themselves industries; and when their directors’ incomes are published, any doubt about the social utility of the finished products is removed.
Abstract The fourth industrial revolution and its Industry 4.0 or connected industry technologies dominates the current discussion of production research. Digital developments like cyber-physical Systems are the key technologies for future, more agile production systems but a common understanding of the term Industry 4.0 is not established in this time. First generic implementation approaches present manifold technical solutions but miss an integrated consideration with existing Lean Production Systems. The actual impact of Industry 4.0 solutions is mostly not clearly specified and a method to evaluate is missing. This paper introduces the Industry 4.0 in an environment of connectability in the Internet of Things and Services with the vision of a smart factory. The initial situation of industrial companies is characterized by Lean Production Systems and Lean Principles. For companies, Industry 4.0 offers an estimated benefit by stabilizing Lean processes with Industry 4.0 applications. To support the development process the presented Concept of an Industry 4.0 impact matrix on lean production systems gives a useable framework. The matrix considers elements of lean production systems with Industry 4.0 technologies and gives a first estimation of impact. In the described development process of a cyber-physical Just-in-Time delivery the matrix is used to find a stabilizing application for a Just-in-Time material supply process.
L. Ardito, A. Petruzzelli, Umberto Panniello
et al.
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a comprehensive picture of the innovative efforts undertaken over time to develop the digital technologies for managing the interface between supply chain management and marketing processes and the role they play in sustaining supply chain management-marketing (SCM-M) integration from an information processing point of view. Design/methodology/approach Patent analysis and actual examples are used to carry out this study. In detail, first, the authors identify the subset of enabling technologies pertaining to the fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) that can be considered the most relevant for effective SCM-M integration (i.e. Industrial Internet of Things, Cloud computing, Big Data analytics and customer profiling, Cyber security). Second, the authors carry out a patent analysis aimed at providing a comprehensive overview of the patenting activity trends characterizing the set of digital technologies under investigation, hence highlighting their innovation dynamics and applications. Findings This research provides insightful information about which digital technologies may enable the SCM-M integration. Specifically, the authors highlight the role those solutions play in terms of information acquisition, storage and elaboration for SCM-M integration by relying on illustrative actual examples. Moreover, the authors present the organisations more involved in the development of digital technologies for SCM-M integration over time and offer an examination of their technological impact in terms of influence on subsequent technological developments. Originality/value So far, much has been said about why marketing and supply chain management functions should be integrated. However, a clear picture of the digital technologies that might be adopted to achieve this objective has yet to be revealed. Thus, the paper contributes to the literature on SCM-M integration and Industry 4.0 by highlighting the enabling technologies for the Industry 4.0 that may particularly serve for managing the SCM-M interface from an information processing perspective.
Coccidiosis is a parasitic disease of a wide variety of animals caused by coccidian protozoa. The coccidia are responsible for major economic losses of the livestock industry. For example, the annual cost due to coccidiosis to the global poultry industry has been estimated to exceed US$ 3 billion annually. Currently available drugs for the control of this disease are either polyether ionophorous antibiotics that are derived from fermentation products, or synthetic compounds, produced by chemical synthesis. Unfortunately, no new drugs in either category have been approved for use for decades. Resistance has been documented for all those of the drugs currently employed and therefore the discovery of novel drugs with unique modes of action is imperative if chemotherapy is to remain the principal means to control this disease. This chapter aims to give an overview of the efficacy and mode of action of the current compounds used to control coccidiosis in livestock and provides a brief outlook of research needs for the future.
Smart Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 production environments integrate the physical and decisional aspects of manufacturing processes into autonomous and decentralised systems. One of the main aspects in these systems is production planning, in particular scheduling operations on machines. We introduce here a new decision-making schema, Smart Scheduling, intended to yield flexible and efficient production schedules on the fly, taking advantage of the features of these new environments. The ability to face unforeseen and disruptive events is one of the main improvements in our proposed schema, which uses an efficient screening procedure (Tolerance Scheduling) to lessen the need of rescheduling in the face of those events.
Abstract Industry 4.0 is causing significant changes in industrial sectors mainly in Europe, USA, and some countries in Asia. Industry 4.0 is a set of disruptive digital and physical technologies that offer new values and services to customers and organizations. In this study, we propose a model to measure the degree of readiness of a manufacturing organization with regard to the implementation of Industry 4.0. Some models have been proposed in the past to determine the degree of maturity of a company that measures the progress made by the company in the implementation of Industry 4.0. However, no model has yet been proposed that determines the degree of readiness of a company, which is an earlier step in the maturation process. To develop the proposed model in this study, we employ a structure based on the Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) J4000 standard for measuring the implementation of lean manufacturing in a company; the model is duly modified to encompass Industry 4.0 principles and concepts. The proposed model comprises eight technology enablers that are the most relevant based on existing literatures. The real-world utilization of the proposed model is tested by an auto-parts manufacturing company in Brazil.
Abstract The existing literature provides a ‘piecemeal’ approach to our understanding of Industry 4.0 as a ‘technological revolution’. However, such an approach leads to scattered literature and the possibility (or risk) that the focus could spin out of control in terms of the existing themes and future research trends. Consequently, the aim of this research is twofold: (i) to identify the main overarching themes discussed in the past and track their evolution over time, and (ii) propose a future research agenda for each overarching theme that considers the multidisciplinary nature of research efforts made on the topic. To reach the first objective, a method based on text mining was implemented. To reach the second one, a review based on recent and relevant paper was made for each overarching theme. Text mining suggests four overarching themes: (i) business, (ii) operations, (iii) technological solutions and (iv) work and skills. ‘Business’ includes studies that investigate the impact of Industry 4.0 on business perspectives and they suggest that governments and industries have a change in manufacturing perspective and attempt to benefit from this industrial revolution wave. ‘Operations’ includes studies investigating the impact of Industry 4.0 new technologies on production, logistics, and supply-chain processes. Manuscripts belonging to ‘Technological solutions’ discuss technological solutions at the core of Industry 4.0. ‘Work and skills’ stream of literature attempts to under the human element lurking behind the scene of Industry 4.0 regarding opportunities and implications. Finally, the paper suggests a future research agenda for each overarching theme, thus paving the way for new research on the topic.
Abstract The generation of accurate discharge summaries from clinical progress notes represents a critical challenge in healthcare documentation, particularly in specialized domains like cardiology where limited annotated data and complex medical terminology pose significant barriers to automation. To address this challenge and improve clinical workflow efficiency, we developed a comprehensive approach combining synthetic data generation with fine-tuned large language models (LLMs), specifically leveraging Llama3.1-8B for automated discharge summary creation. Our methodology involved constructing a hybrid dataset by combining 4658 real-world cardiology discharge summaries with 12,661 high-quality synthetic records generated via the OpenAI API and validated through a T5-based binary classifier that filtered out low-quality outputs. The fine-tuned Llama3.1-8B model demonstrated superior performance across multiple evaluation metrics including ROUGE, BLEU, and BERTScore, while qualitative assessment by three expert cardiologists confirmed the model’s ability to generate clinically coherent, complete, and medically relevant discharge summaries with high accuracy in capturing patient conditions and treatment details. This research makes significant contributions to the healthcare informatics community by demonstrating the feasibility of using fine-tuned open-source LLMs for specialized clinical documentation tasks, establishing a validated framework for synthetic medical data augmentation in low-resource scenarios, and providing evidence that AI-assisted clinical documentation can achieve both technical excellence and clinical utility, thereby offering a scalable solution to reduce administrative burden on healthcare professionals while maintaining high standards of patient care documentation.
Abstract Manufacturing industries worldwide are on the cusp of Industry 4.0 revolution which will create a paradigm shift by integrating the physical and virtual worlds. This study attempts to identify the barriers of Industry 4.0 adoption and implementation in Indian textile and clothing industry. Fourteen barriers were shortlisted through literature review, followed by questionnaire survey among industry experts. Interpretive structural modelling (ISM) was used to elicit the contextual driver-driven relationships among these barriers. It was found that lack of trained staff; lack of understanding and commitment of top management; lack of government support and policies; and poor research and development are the driving barriers. High implementation cost; fear of failure; and seamless integration and compatibility issues are the driven barriers. To overcome these barriers, a triple helix based framework has been proposed for collaborative activities among the actors of textile and clothing organisations, academia and government. This study is the first of its kind to identify and analyse the Industry 4.0 barriers in textile and clothing industry and to propose their mitigation strategies. The outcome of this study will help the policy makers to devise strategies for Industry 4.0 adoption and implementation in Indian textile and clothing industry.