The term Industry 4.0 was coined in 2011 as part of a strategic roadmap to promote the digitalization of manufacturing. Industry 4.0 which is considered to be the fourth Industrial Revolution, is led by intelligent manufacturing. The concept of Industry 4.0 is based on the integration of digital innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud Computing and Big Data analysis, and is mainly dependent on building a Cyber-Physical system (CPS) to realize a digital and intelligent factory, in order to promote manufacturing to become more digital, information-led, customized, and green.
Currently, Industry 4.0 is the vision for the future, because it involves many aspects, and faces many of challenges, including industrial, economic and social ones. The CPS is the core foundation of Industry 4.0 since it connects all physical devices to the Internet, and allows to incorporate five functions: computing, communications, precision control, coordination and autonomy . Through integration of the virtual and physical worlds, smart production is made possible, so Industry 4.0 is equivalent to CPS. Nevertheless, how to converge the physical and cyber worlds of manufacturing is still one big industrial challenge within the Industry 4.0 . Referring to the economic challenge, the implementation of Industry 4.0 in general poses threats regarding large investments required and uncertain profitability. Furthermore, SMEs manufacturers perceive the transformation towards Industry 4.0 as challenging, due to their low degree of process standardization and less automated production equipment. Finally, and as to social challenges, it is worth mentioning the actual employee’s fears and concerns regarding: the need to be qualified, dependency on technical assistance systems and workplace safety in human-machine interaction systems. By overcoming the aforementioned challenges of Industry 4.0 the future of European manufacturing will see industrial production systems become more intelligent, which will greatly improve industrial productivity up to 30%, enhancing competitiveness, and socio-economic sustainability in European factories. In fact, European Industry 4.0 market is projected to account for more than a third of global Industry 4.0 investment by 2020. This market is expected to grow at an impressive average annual growth rate of 22%. Reaching a value of €287 billion in 2020 . Taking these premises into account, it can be concluded that developing new advanced solutions based on ICTs is a great market opportunity within the manufacturing sector.
In thise sense,the VIMS project aims to develop and industrialise a new, complete, and integrated digital ecosystem (VIMS system/platform) for industrial and manufacturing environments. The core of the VIMS system combines an IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) platform (along with all its data collected from smart instrumentation, advanced analysis techniques and AI models) with a Digital Twin (DT) of the factory or production line.
