Production scheduling in the context of Industry 4.0: review and trends

TLDR

Industry 4.0 operationalisation remains under‑researched, especially for scheduling, where gaps exist in decentralised decision‑making and human‑robot collaboration. The study aims to clarify scheduling issues that must be addressed within the Industry 4.0 framework. A two‑stage cascade literature review first identifies critical scheduling areas arising from Industry 4.0 opportunities and challenges, then surveys existing research addressing those areas. The review reveals how Industry 4.0 will reshape scheduling and highlights promising future research directions, such as holistic scheduling and enhanced flexibility.

Abstract

Notwithstanding its disruptive potential, which has been the object of considerable debate, Industry4.0 (I4.0) operationalisation still needs significant study. Specifically, scheduling is a key process that should be explored from this perspective. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the issues regarding scheduling that need to be considered in the new I4.0 framework. To achieve this, a two-stage cascade literature review is performed. The review begins with an analysis regarding the opportunities and challenges brought by I4.0 to the scheduling field, outputting a set of critical scheduling areas (CSA) in which development is essential. The second-stage literature review is performed to understand which steps have been taken so far by previous research in the scheduling field to address those challenges. Thus, a first contribution of this work is to provide insight on the influence and expected changes brought by I4.0 to scheduling, while showcasing relevant research. Another contribution is to identify the most promising future lines of research in this field, in which relevant challenges such as holistic scheduling, or increased flexibility requirements are highlighted. Concurrently, CSA such as decentralised decision-making, and human–robot collaboration display large gaps between current practice and the required technological level of development.