Industry 4.0 enabling manufacturing flexibility: technology contributions to individual resource and shop floor flexibility
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management
ISSN: 1741-038X
Article publication date: 7 April 2022
Issue publication date: 4 July 2022
Abstract
Purpose
This paper focuses on understanding the contribution of Industry 4.0 technologies to manufacturing flexibility.
Design/methodology/approach
A multiple-case study was conducted through interviews and complementary data from 12 adopters of Industry 4.0 technologies from the industrial sector. To enable a broad perspective, cases from 5 industry sectors with different technological intensity levels were studied.
Findings
The findings show that Industry 4.0 technologies are mostly used to improve machine flexibility since there is a major focus on technological approaches rather than on wider flexibility. The results also showed that cloud services, IoT, and data analytics provide the basis for flexible operation, and collaborative robots, ERP/MES/PLM, AGVs, and traceability devices are the most commonly implemented technologies for flexibility. However, inherent contingency factors such as production complexity and product life cycle need to be considered.
Originality/value
This article expands the research on manufacturing flexibility, considering new capabilities introduced by Industry 4.0.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the Research Coordination of the Brazilian Ministry of Education (CAPES), the Brazilian Scientific and Technology Council (CNPq) and C-MAST/ Centre for Mechanical and Aerospace Science and Technologies of University of Beira Interior, for the financial support received to conduct this research. This work has also been supported by the project INDTECH 4.0, co-financed by the PT2020 and COMPETE2020 programs, and the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and UID/EMS/00151/2019.
Citation
Enrique, D.V., Marcon, É., Charrua-Santos, F. and Frank, A.G. (2022), "Industry 4.0 enabling manufacturing flexibility: technology contributions to individual resource and shop floor flexibility", Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Vol. 33 No. 5, pp. 853-875. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMTM-08-2021-0312
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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