Advancing Environmental Sustainability in Manufacturing Enterprises: An Industry 4.0 Perspective

The fourth industrial revolution, sometimes termed Industry 4.0, represents an opportunity to advance environmental sustainability within the manufacturing sector. Key elements of Industry 4.0 are interconnectivity, data sharing, and smart machines. Connecting smart machines to the Internet provides great opportunity to improve the energy efficiency, and reduce the environmental impact, of the individual machine tools, shop floor, company, and whole supply chain. Sensors attached to the smart machines provide data, which when sent to the Internet can be analyzed to predict energy consumption, optimize energy efficiency, and quantify environmental impact of the machine tools. For the shop floor, the data can assist in scheduling to optimize energy consumption. Energy wasted through the unnecessary motion of parts and materials can be avoided through tracking and sharing of data across the entire supply chain. This paper will examine many of the opportunities of Industry 4.0 with respect to advancing environmental sustainability.