Special Issue: Design Engineering in the Age of Industry 4.0

Abstract

This special issue is motivated by the trend of smart factories of the future toward the fourth Industrial Revolution, which makes it possible to better leverage capabilities and resources in a human-cyber-physical production environment. This 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. Recent advances in design engineering in the age of Industry 4.0 are presented in this special issue. More than 40 papers were received and peer-reviewed, out of which 14 papers were selected for publication. These papers are both theoretical and practical, as well as state-of-the-art reviews, new perspectives, and outlook for future research directions in the field. The papers span a range of design aspects and Industry 4.0 technologies. There are three intersecting clusters in this category: design principles and techniques for Industry 4.0, smart manufacturing technologies, and machine learning and data-driven techniques for Industry 4.0.