The Fourth Industrial Revolution has been proposed, and various research and development activities geared toward the realization of smart factories have become extremely active. The smart factories are to use system thinking and data thinking IoT technologies in manufacturing.
In smart factories developed individually within a company, the direction of the development activities is changing drastically. Regarding common technologies, research activities and fusibility case study activities that are collaborations among industry, academia, and government and that show consideration and awareness of ecosystems are becoming active. In Japan, several initiatives support these activities. One of these initiatives, Industrial Value Chain Initiative (IVI), has conducted more than 200 research and demonstration activities toward the establishment of smart factories.
This special issue addresses the latest in advanced research on smart factories. We cordially invite you to submit papers on the topic to share your experiences and achievements with our many interested readers and researchers.
“Smart factory” includes, but is not limited to, the Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber Physical Systems (CPS), digital twins, cloud base technologies, production management technologies, supply chain management technologies, simulation technologies, maintenance technologies, machine to machine (M2M), sensor networks, and facility technologies.