Collaborative manufacturing and management contextualization in the Industry 4.0 based on a systematic literature review

Abstract

Collaboration in the digitalization era is of utmost importance, as it enables sustainable development in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) context. In this paper, a general view over different approaches and application scenarios of collaboration, along with I4.0-oriented technology that has been put forward is explored, based on a systematic literature review. As a result, it was possible to realize that the wide worldwide portfolio of contributions in the literature can be grouped in seven main clusters, which, in turn, are further synthesized through a proposed framework including three main blocks about models, tools, and business approaches about collaborative manufacturing and management in I4.0. It was also possible to recognize that learning, and further, co-learning are key issues correlating collaboration with I4.0, along with the human factor, which assumes a central role in linking these two domains, which combined, are of utmost importance to enable companies to reach a sustainable development in the current digitalization era. Future open research questions should be explored in order to further analyse industrial understandings on the importance of the underlying communication, learning, and collaboration approaches, along with supporting methods, means, and tools, to properly approach collaboration issues in I4.0, for promoting sustainable development of companies.