Industry 4.0 Accelerating Sustainable Manufacturing in the COVID-19 Era: Assessing the Readiness and Responsiveness of Italian Regions
TL;DR: In this article, an assessment framework before the COVID-19 pandemic is provided based on two dimensions: the readiness of firms to invest in I4.0 and favorable structural conditions.
Abstract: An unpredictable shock hit the Italian economy in February 2020 when the spread of the COVID-19 virus began in Italy and other countries worldwide. In this context, Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies can be a fundamental tool for economic recovery by favouring the shift towards sustainable manufacturing. Therefore, it is necessary to measure the readiness of countries for I4.0 in order to guide policies in defining incentives to promote I4.0 and unlock its potential in the pandemic era. In this context, the paper aims to understand the readiness and responsiveness of the Italian Regions with respect to I4.0 concepts prior to the pandemic and identify best practices that are supporting companies in I4.0 adoption, with a focus on those incentivizing sustainable practices. An assessment framework before the pandemic is provided based on two dimensions: the readiness of firms to invest in I4.0 and favourable structural conditions. The assessment shows a group of alert regions as opposed to a group of unprepared, mostly linked Northern and Southern differences. Assuming that the “alert regions” are more likely to effectively manage and overcome the post- COVID-19 crisis, we provide a picture of how the Italian Regions have sought to encourage the adoption of digital technologies to improve resilience after the shock. The analysis shows that supporting measures mainly address Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. Furthermore, the tenders encouraging the adoption of I4.0 suggest that collaboration among stakeholders will become imperative.
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TL;DR: In this paper , the authors provide a unique analysis of the linkages between institutions, SDGs and digital technologies to establish their exact interdependencies and contribute to social and economic policy implications on digital technology development for addressing grand challenges.
50 citations
TL;DR: In this article , the authors analyzed the characteristics and interrelation of 133 articles through bibliometric and literature systemization techniques to elucidate expectations and implications for businesses worldwide concerning the long-term financial and functional impact of COVID-19.
Abstract: The paper revises the ample empirical and theoretical literature on sustainable organizational growth and strategic leadership relating to the critical aspects of the ongoing pandemic, including poverty, social responsibility, public health, and organizational and managerial innovation. Drawing from available COVID-19, management, and sustainable leadership publications released from 2020 to 2021, this paper considers influential studies exploring core business concepts, principles, philosophies, and activities for accelerating, stimulating, and nurturing social and corporate sustainability. The study analyzed the characteristics and interrelation of 133 articles through bibliometric and literature systemization techniques. We shed light on the significant influence COVID-19 has had on financial, operational, and psychological solvency and organizational health to elucidate expectations and implications for businesses worldwide concerning the long-term financial and functional impact of COVID-19. An overview of the relevant studies on the individual, organizational, and external factors relating to novel disease’s relation to sustainability are provided. We emphasize the need for digital transformation following the COVID-19 upheaval and throughout the upcoming years. Some of the generally employed techniques in response to adversity entail portfolio diversification, service delivery innovation, product redesigning, new market development, partnering with competitors and/or complementary service providers, synergizing with other stakeholders, and open innovation.
39 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors collated a global qualitative perspective (survey interviews) on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive and negative impacts for future-proofing the construction sector.
Abstract: Purpose: The construction industry represents most of every country’s finances and vital to continued economic growth and activities, especially in developing countries. The impact of the severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 disease (COVID19) on the government’s income resulted in the expectation of many public projects being cancelled or delayed providing little opportunity for the emergence of new public projects. This study collated a global qualitative perspective (survey interviews) on the lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic and the positive and negative impacts for future-proofing the construction sector. Design/methodology/approach: In total, 76 respondents from five continents excluding South America responded to the online open-ended structured questionnaire. Data collected were analysed through artificial inteligence analytics tool – Zoho analytics. Findings: The themes indicating the positive impact obtained from the interview were overhead cost reduction, remote working environment, focus on health and safety, improved productivity and sustainability goals while the themes signifying the negative impact were low business turnover, delays in construction payment and output, difficulties working from home and job losses. Supply chain management, construction project management improvement, concentration on health and safety and effective virtual working environment were collated as themes on lessons learned. Social implications: The major findings of this study emphasise on the need to improve the occupational health and safety and onsite safety measures for future proofing of the construction industry. Originality/value: The findings from the analyses made clear the imperativeness of the built environment research, with a focus on novel framework and strategies for future proofing the construction industry. © 2021, Emerald Publishing Limited.
30 citations
TL;DR: The goal is to develop a digital twin which integrates the physical and virtual systems and allows a real-time mapping of the patient flow to create a sustainable and dynamic vaccination center.
Abstract: The problem is the vaccination of a large number of people in a short time period, using minimum space and resources. The tradeoff is that this minimum number of resources must guarantee a good service for the patients, represented by the time spent in the system and in the queue. The goal is to develop a digital twin which integrates the physical and virtual systems and allows a real-time mapping of the patient flow to create a sustainable and dynamic vaccination center. Firstly, to reach this goal, a discrete-event simulation model is implemented. The simulation model is integrated with a mobile application that automatically collects time measures. By processing these measures, indicators can be computed to find problems, run the virtual model to solve them, and replicate improvements in the real system. The model is tested in a South Tyrol vaccination clinic and the best configuration found includes 31 operators and 306 places dedicated for the queues. This configuration allows the vaccination of 2164 patients in a 10-h shift, with a mean process time of 25 min. Data from the APP are managed to build the dashboard with indicators like number of people in queue for each phase and resource utilization.
18 citations
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explored the effects of openness to Industry 4.0 on the perceived production recovery post the COVID-19 pandemic, mediated by digital and classical reorganization.
15 citations
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01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: The response to this technological revolution must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society, as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before. We do not yet know just how it will unfold, but one thing is clear: the response to it must be integrated and comprehensive, involving all stakeholders of the global polity, from the public and private sectors to academia and civil society.
3,501 citations
TL;DR: This exhaustive literature review provides a concrete definition of Industry 4.0 and defines its six design principles such as interoperability, virtualization, local, real-time talent, service orientation and modularity.
Abstract: Manufacturing industry profoundly impact economic and societal progress. As being a commonly accepted term for research centers and universities, the Industry 4.0 initiative has received a splendid attention of the business and research community. Although the idea is not new and was on the agenda of academic research in many years with different perceptions, the term “Industry 4.0” is just launched and well accepted to some extend not only in academic life but also in the industrial society as well. While academic research focuses on understanding and defining the concept and trying to develop related systems, business models and respective methodologies, industry, on the other hand, focuses its attention on the change of industrial machine suits and intelligent products as well as potential customers on this progress. It is therefore important for the companies to primarily understand the features and content of the Industry 4.0 for potential transformation from machine dominant manufacturing to digital manufacturing. In order to achieve a successful transformation, they should clearly review their positions and respective potentials against basic requirements set forward for Industry 4.0 standard. This will allow them to generate a well-defined road map. There has been several approaches and discussions going on along this line, a several road maps are already proposed. Some of those are reviewed in this paper. However, the literature clearly indicates the lack of respective assessment methodologies. Since the implementation and applications of related theorems and definitions outlined for the 4th industrial revolution is not mature enough for most of the reel life implementations, a systematic approach for making respective assessments and evaluations seems to be urgently required for those who are intending to speed this transformation up. It is now main responsibility of the research community to developed technological infrastructure with physical systems, management models, business models as well as some well-defined Industry 4.0 scenarios in order to make the life for the practitioners easy. It is estimated by the experts that the Industry 4.0 and related progress along this line will have an enormous effect on social life. As outlined in the introduction, some social transformation is also expected. It is assumed that the robots will be more dominant in manufacturing, implanted technologies, cooperating and coordinating machines, self-decision-making systems, autonom problem solvers, learning machines, 3D printing etc. will dominate the production process. Wearable internet, big data analysis, sensor based life, smart city implementations or similar applications will be the main concern of the community. This social transformation will naturally trigger the manufacturing society to improve their manufacturing suits to cope with the customer requirements and sustain competitive advantage. A summary of the potential progress along this line is reviewed in introduction of the paper. It is so obvious that the future manufacturing systems will have a different vision composed of products, intelligence, communications and information network. This will bring about new business models to be dominant in industrial life. Another important issue to take into account is that the time span of this so-called revolution will be so short triggering a continues transformation process to yield some new industrial areas to emerge. This clearly puts a big pressure on manufacturers to learn, understand, design and implement the transformation process. Since the main motivation for finding the best way to follow this transformation, a comprehensive literature review will generate a remarkable support. This paper presents such a review for highlighting the progress and aims to help improve the awareness on the best experiences. It is intended to provide a clear idea for those wishing to generate a road map for digitizing the respective manufacturing suits. By presenting this review it is also intended to provide a hands-on library of Industry 4.0 to both academics as well as industrial practitioners. The top 100 headings, abstracts and key words (i.e. a total of 619 publications of any kind) for each search term were independently analyzed in order to ensure the reliability of the review process. Note that, this exhaustive literature review provides a concrete definition of Industry 4.0 and defines its six design principles such as interoperability, virtualization, local, real-time talent, service orientation and modularity. It seems that these principles have taken the attention of the scientists to carry out more variety of research on the subject and to develop implementable and appropriate scenarios. A comprehensive taxonomy of Industry 4.0 can also be developed through analyzing the results of this review.
1,011 citations
"Industry 4.0 Accelerating Sustainab..." refers background in this paper
...0 is expected to improve firms’ existing innovation capability [48]....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose an empirically grounded model and its implementation to assess the Industry 4.0 maturity of industrial enterprises in the domain of discrete manufacturing by including organizational aspects.
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"Industry 4.0 Accelerating Sustainab..." refers background or methods in this paper
...Many companies are adopting technologies such as Cyber-Physical System (CPS), The Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, Big Data, Cloud Manufacturing, and Augmented Reality to improve products and processes, increase efficiency and productivity, reduce costs, and increase customer satisfaction [19,20]....
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...[19] identified nine characteristics: strategy, leadership, customers, products, operations, culture, people, governance, and technology, as a means to determine the I4....
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