Industry 4.0: A Review of Digital Retrofitting Solutions for Legacy Manufacturing Systems

Abstract

Industry 4.0 technologies and digitalised processes are essential for implementing smart manufacturing within vertically and horizontally integrated industries. These technologies offer new ways to generate revenue from data-driven services and enable predictive maintenance based on real-time data analytics. Although the fourth industrial revolution has been underway for more than a decade, the manufacturing sector is still grappling with the process of upgrading manufacturing systems and processes to Industry 4.0-conforming technologies and standards. Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) cannot always afford to replace their legacy systems with state-of-the-art machines. One option available in such cases is known as retrofitting, in which manufacturing systems of past generations are upgraded with sensors and IoT components to integrate them into a digital workflow across the enterprise. Unfortunately, the scope and systematic process of legacy system retrofitting and integration are not yet well understood and currently represent a large gap in the literature. In this article, the authors present an in-depth systematic review of case studies and available literature on legacy system retrofitting. A total of 32 papers met our selection criteria and were particularly relevant to our topic. The results identify three digital retrofitting solutions.

Enhancing Manufacturing Efficiency: A Lean Industry 4.0 Approach to Retrofitting

“…This is where retrofit solutions should play their role, especially in fast, targeted to specific areas or indicators, and cost-friendly delivery of results towards leaner and more digitalized production process [1,10]. Figure 3 shows the benefits of merging retrofit and lean practices [25,29,30,31,32]. The two main concepts of Lean, continuous improvement, and waste elimination can be clearly addressed by retrofit.…”

The struggle of sensor-based digital servitization: analysis and perspectives for organizational digital transformation in SMEs

“…As such, retrofitting allows SMEs to integrate digital solutions into their existing infrastructure, thus enabling access to shop-floor data without costly and disruptive equipment replacements (Javaid et al, 2021). This approach empowers SMEs to stay competitive while minimizing the financial barriers associated with DT (Alqoud et al, 2022). Furthermore, the replacement of working legacy equipment with Industry 4.0-capable machines to withstand the DT is also questionable from the perspective of sustainability (Garc ıa et al, 2022).…”