the majority of papers about Industry 4.0 consider changes inside factories, rather than changes in production networks. Much appreciate any examples in this area.
Dear @Ismail, inter-organisational Industry 4.0 is an ecosystem of smart factories that collaborate on demand whilst delivering complex "engineer - to - order" / "design and build" products to manufactureres. Sometimes these partnerships are called instant virtual enterprises. They require a centralised (digital platform) or decentralised (nexus of smart contracts - blockchain) coordination for bidding for tender /contract execution. A manufacturer gets the requested order delivered like we consume electricity or Internet nowadays - abstracting from suppliers choice just tracking & tracing the status of production online. From the supply chain side this conceptual vision brings reduction of transaction costs, automated procurement and delivery [assembly is covered by the smart factory inside] and reduction of supply chain's inefficiencies (e. g. 'Bullwhip' effects, costs for storage / delivery, under or over production of semi-parts). This is due to end-to-end connectivity through all suppliers and information availability that industry 4.0 offers. So that if there is a peak of demand of a semi-part we could find immediately suppliers with available capacities and integrate them into the value chain. The same thing happens when supplier fails to fulfull his task - he is immediately replaced by its peer.
In operational research its partially covered by "co-opetition" strategy (Apple procures iPhone displays from Samsung suppliers), however without digital infrastructure and agreed standards this all is very slow to implement for an unpredictable demand and changing/ adding suppliers.
In other words I prefer talking about industry 4 ecosystem rather than digitisation of a single factory, that following many industrial & academia papers is on the way to be quite a trivial task.
Industry 4 as an ecosystem also allows SMEs and freelancers easier penetrate value chains due to the established industrial standards and manufactruing conditions available in the marketplace. They would also need digital infrastructure of course and change the mindset regarding selective shop-floor data sharing. The barriers to such case and potential solutions we are developing now in a project below:
https://www.researchgate.net/project/DIGICOR-Decentralised-Agile-Coordination-Across-Supply-Chains
Thanks for your interest!
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