Special Issue: Design Engineering in the Age of Industry 4.0

Abstract

Papers received after the submission deadline may still be considered for the special issue, if time and space permits.Target DatesSubmission deadline: August 31, 2020Initial review completed: November 30, 2020Final decision: January 31, 2021Publication: May 1, 2021Industry 4.0 represents the Fourth Industrial Revolution and can be used as a framework to address all aspects of product realization including the challenges arising in the integration of cyber-systems and physical resources. The emerging paradigm of Industry 4.0 poses new systems design problems at the interface of smart manufacturing, robust and flexible automation, distributed and reconfigurable production systems, industrial IoT, and supply chain integration. Design engineering in the age of Industry 4.0 requires a new paradigm that deals with the sustainability of product and service, user experience and human satisfaction across a smart and connected value chain, as well as the distributed and networked aspect of the product realization processes. This Special Issue is dedicated to recent advances in design engineering in the age of Industry 4.0. Original papers with an explicit relevance to design issues such as design synthesis, modeling, and analysis or with clear design motivation—whether theoretical or practical nature—as well as state-of-the-art reviews, new perspectives, and outlooks on future research directions, are welcome. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following: Design principles, design theory and methods, design automation, and DFX for Industry 4.0. This includes forecasting/prediction, managing uncertainty, data mining, and machine learning.Design issues regarding the coordinated customer, product, process, and logistics decisions in smart factories of the future, integration of supply chain and manufacturing, value chain design, resilience, and sustainability of closed-loop smart design, manufacturing, and deployment for a circular economy in Industry 4.0.Design engineering associated with enterprise architectures and ontologies of cyber-physical systems for manufacturing, including design of flexible manufacturing machines and reconfigurable processes, resilient and sustainable manufacturing.Design engineering associated with new strategies, organization issues, enabling technologies, business models, case studies, and industrial practice, including strategic planning of manufacturing as social-technical systems, human behaviors, societal and economic impacts of smart factories.Design engineering at the human-technology frontier, cloud-based design and manufacturing, human–robot interaction, workplace design and industrial safety, digital human modeling, and team cognition.Design engineering associated with decentralized data-driven decision-making, autonomy, secure design and manufacturing, online design, and manufacturing marketplaces.Design automation and decision-making based on smart manufacturing systems modeling and simulation, performance measure, economies of scale and scope, valuation, and cost accounting of product realization.Design education, workforce development, cyber training, distributed learning, and cognitive assistance for smart factories and Industry 4.0.