Digital technologies, methods and tools towards sustainable manufacturing: does Industry 4.0 support to reach environmental targets?
Sebastian Thiede
Abstract
Sustainability and digitalization are both major change drivers for manufacturing companies. There are also strong interactions in between, e.g., through digital technologies, methods and tools that aim to improve the environmental performance of manufacturing related activities. Thereby also additional efforts for establishing information and communication technologies (ICT) need to be taken into account. Against this background, a reference framework is introduced in this paper based on the necessary factory system understanding and the identification of relevant fields of action. Furthermore, methodological support is provided in order to foster the development of digital solutions that actually lead to environmentally related improvements.