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S. Schlund, F. Baaij:
"Describing the Technological Scope of Industry 4.0 - a Review of Survey Publications";
LogForum, 14 (2018), 3; 13 pages.

The paper addresses common difficulties of understanding the scope and the underlying technologies of "Industry 4.0". Existing definitions comprise a variety of technologies and applications, processes as well as business models. Their difficult differentiation has led to a complicated understanding of the topic altogether. Therefore, this study aims at a structuring of the scope of "Industry 4.0" using the average importance of its underlying technologies, as it is represented in 38 survey publications dedicated on Industry 4.0. Methods: Based on a review of existing survey literature on Industry 4.0, relevant technologies are identified. Next, these technologies are recapped in five technology areas. Furthermore, all technologies are assessed according to their relevance to Industry 4.0 using citation indices of the respective publication. Finally, two-dimensional figures are used to present an overview structure of all cited technologies, their structural connections and their relevance. In summary, a structuring of "Industry 4.0" through the cited technologies and their evolution over the years 2013 until 2016 is displayed to facilitate the understanding of significant research trends and promising application areas within "Industry 4.0". Conclusion: Compared to existing reviews and empirical approaches on the topic, this paper focusses on a review of survey literature specifically dedicated to an understanding of the concept of Industry 4.0. The results allow an overview of the respective relevance of technologies within the comprehensive scope of the topic. It shows the most often used technologies (web services with a relative importance of 3.46/5) as well as the evolvement of the importance of each technology within the period of 2013-2016. (original abstract)

industry 4.0, Smart factories

http://dx.doi.org/10.17270/J.LOG.2018.289

https://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/publik_276547.pdf