The emerging of the fourth industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0 (I4.0), from the advancement in several technologies is viewed not only to promote economic growth, but also to enable a greener future. The 2030 Agenda of the United Nations for sustainable development sets out clear goals for the industry to foster the economy, while preserving social well-being and ecological validity. However, the influence of I4.0 technologies on the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) has not been conclusively or systematically investigated. By understanding the link between the I4.0 technologies and the SDGs, researchers can better support policymakers to consider the technological advancement in updating and harmonizing policies and strategies in different sectors (i.e., education, industry, and governmental) with the SDGs. To address this gap, academic experts in this paper have investigated the influence of I4.0 technologies on the sustainability targets identified by the UN. Key I4.0 element technologies have been classified to enable a quantitative mapping with the 17 SDGs. The results indicate that the majority of the I4.0 technologies can contribute positively to achieving the UN agenda. It was also found that the effects of the technologies on individual goals varies between direct and strong, and indirect and weak influences. The main insights and lessons learned from the mapping are provided to support future policy.

Price-based demand response stimulates factories to adapt their power consumption patterns to time-sensitive electricity prices to reduce cost. This paper introduces a multi-objective optimization model which schedules job processing, machine idle modes, and human workers under real-time electricity pricing. Beyond existing models, labor is considered due to the trade-off between energy and labor costs. An adaptive multi-objective memetic algorithm is proposed to leverage feedback of cross-dominance and stagnation in a search and a prioritized grouping strategy. Thus, adaptive balance remains between exploration of the NSGA-II and exploitation of two mutually complementary local search operators. A case study of an extrusion blow molding process in a plastic bottle manufacturer demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the algorithm. The proposed scheduling method enables intelligent production systems, where production loads and human workers are mutually matched and jointly adapted to real-time electricity pricing for cost-efficient production.

Non-destructive measurements of high aspect ratio microscale features, especially those with internal geometries such as micro-holes, remain a challenging metrology problem that is increasing in difficulty due to the increasing requirement for more complexity and higher tolerances in such structures. Additionally, there is a growing use of functional surface texturing for improving characteristics such as heat transfer and wettability. As a result, measurement techniques capable of providing dimensional form and surface finish for these features are of intense interest. This review explores the state-of-the-art inspection methodologies compatible with high-aspect-ratio structures and their suitability for extracting three-dimensional surface data based on identified high-aspect ratio structure types. Here, the abilities, limitations, challenges, and future requirements for the practical implementation and acceptance of these measurement techniques are presented.

Constantly shorter product lifecycles and the high number of product variants necessitate frequent production system reconfigurations and changeovers. Shortening ramp-up and changeover times is essential to achieve the agility required to respond to these challenges. This work investigates a symbiotic human-machine environment, which combines a formal framework for capturing structured ramp-up experiences from expert production engineers with a reinforcement learning method to formulate effective ramp-up policies. Such learned policies have been shown to reduce unnecessary iterations in human decision-making processes by suggesting the most appropriate actions for different ramp-up states. One of the key challenges for machine learning-based methods, particularly for episodic problems with complex state-spaces, such as ramp-up, is the exploration strategy that can maximize the information gain while minimizing the number of exploration steps required to find good policies. This paper proposes an exploration strategy for reinforcement learning, guided by a human expert. The proposed approach combines human intelligence with machine's capability for processing data quickly, accurately, and reliably. The efficiency of the proposed human exploration guided machine learning strategy is assessed by comparing it with three machine-based exploration strategies. To test and compare the four strategies, a ramp-up emulator was built, based on system experimentation and user experience. The results of the experiments show that human-guided exploration can achieve close to optimal behavior, with far less data than what is needed for traditional machine-based strategies.

Smart technologies with higher degrees of autonomy will be essential to achieve the next breakthrough in both agility and productivity in future manufacturing systems, often referred to as Industry 4.0. However, the technologies will also bring substantial design and integration challenges and novelty risks to manufacturing businesses. The aim of this paper is to analyse the current landscape and to identify the challenges for introducing smart technologies into manufacturing systems in Europe. Expert knowledge from both industrial and academic practitioners in the field was extracted using an online survey. A workshop was used to triangulate and extend the survey results. The findings indicate three main challenges for the ubiquitous implementation of smart technologies in manufacturing are: i) the perceived risk of novel technologies, ii) the complexity of integration, and iii) the consideration of human factors. Recommendations are made based on these findings to transform the landscape for smart manufacturing.

Precision assembly systems today are subject to high levels of change which require fast physical and logical adaption. As such, new methods and tools need to reflect this need providing adaptive systems that can react to market changes in a timely and cost effective manner. Towards achieving increased responsiveness several developments of new modular concepts provided the bases for higher system adaptability through increased module interchangeability and reusability. The modularization of physical and control infrastructure only solves one aspect of the issue, there is still a lack of appropriate tools and methods to support requirements driven reconfiguration of such systems. This paper proposes an agent architecture for reconfiguration of equipment modules driven by a set of requirements. A new agent model is proposed which addresses the specific needs of precision modular assembly systems catering both for physical and logical constraints of the modules as well as their joint emergent behaviour.