With the application of Internet of Things and services to manufacturing, the fourth stage of industrialization, referred to as Industrie 4.0, is believed to be approaching. For Industrie 4.0 to come true, it is essential to implement the horizontal integration of inter-corporation value network, the end-to-end integration of engineering value chain, and the vertical integration of factory inside. In this paper, we focus on the vertical integration to implement flexible and reconfigurable smart factory. We first propose a brief framework that incorporates industrial wireless networks, cloud, and fixed or mobile terminals with smart artifacts such as machines, products, and conveyors. Then, we elaborate the operational mechanism from the perspective of control engineering, that is, the smart artifacts form a self-organized system which is assisted with the feedback and coordination blocks that are implemented on the cloud and based on the big data analytics. In addition, we outline the main technical features and beneficial outcomes and present a detailed design scheme. We conclude that the smart factory of Industrie 4.0 is achievable by extensively applying the existing enabling technologies while actively coping with the technical challenges.

Due to the current structure of digital factory, it is necessary to build the smart factory to upgrade the manufacturing industry. Smart factory adopts the combination of physical technology and cyber technology and deeply integrates previously independent discrete systems making the involved technologies more complex and precise than they are now. In this paper, a hierarchical architecture of the smart factory was proposed firstly, and then the key technologies were analyzed from the aspects of the physical resource layer, the network layer, and the data application layer. In addition, we discussed the major issues and potential solutions to key emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing, which are embedded in the manufacturing process. Finally, a candy packing line was used to verify the key technologies of smart factory, which showed that the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) of the equipment is significantly improved.

In recent years, there have been great advances in industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and its related domains, such as industrial wireless networks (IWNs), big data, and cloud computing. These emerging technologies will bring great opportunities for promoting industrial upgrades and even allow the introduction of the fourth industrial revolution, namely, Industry 4.0. In the context of Industry 4.0, all kinds of intelligent equipment (e.g., industrial robots) supported by wired or wireless networks are widely adopted, and both real-time and delayed signals coexist. Therefore, based on the advancement of software-defined networks technology, we propose a new concept for industrial environments by introducing software-defined IIoT in order to make the network more flexible. In this paper, we analyze the IIoT architecture, including physical layer, IWNs, industrial cloud, and smart terminals, and describe the information interaction among different devices. Then, we propose a software-defined IIoT architecture to manage physical devices and provide an interface for information exchange. Subsequently, we discuss the prominent problems and possible solutions for software-defined IIoT. Finally, we select an intelligent manufacturing environment as an assessment test bed, and implement the basic experimental analysis. This paper will open a new research direction of IIoT and accelerate the implementation of Industry 4.0.