Zhen Liu, Lijun Jiang, Mohamed Osmani, Peter Demian
At present, sustainable design is experiencing energy consumption and cost-effectiveness challenges in the building industry. A recent body of literature argues that the development of emerging smart digital technologies, such as Building Information Management (BIM) and blockchain (BC), offer immediate benefits to the industry. However, the current application of BIM and BC in the sustainable design and construction process focuses on smart energy and construction management, with little attention to addressing challenges for applying BIM to sustainable design and proposing strategies in terms of the usability of these technologies in the management of building construction projects. Therefore, this paper sets out to explore the potential roles of an integrated BIM and BC approach for sustainable building design information management. The first attempt is presented to use BC aided BIM for sustainable building design coordination and collaboration in multiple building stages. BC has the potential to address challenges that hinder the industry from using BIM for sustainable design, which has been unearthed. An innovative BC enhanced transaction process in BIM is required for sustainable building development. Roles of a user level driven smart contract system of BC can be used to enhance BIM system in the sustainable buildings process. The role of BC is primarily at user level driven smart contracts and their record value exchange capabilities. A user level (BIM stakeholders) driven BC technology for transaction in BIM process flow is revealed, and the user level (sustainable building design project stakeholders/BIM clients) driven and the smart contract enabled BIM+ BC architecture to address challenges of BIM for sustainable design has been further circulated according to the literature. Subsequently, a conceptual architecture of BIM + BC for Sustainable Building Design Information Management Framework in building project management has been proposed, validated, and refined. The Framework has two level encompassing structures and flow. The high-level framework is focused on strategy, whilst the low-level framework demonstrates technical components in detail. This architecture supporting project stakeholders in managing information, has the potential to achieve and ensure the realization of sustainable design goals through the interactive realization of smart contracts integrated into the user level driven BIM + BC system and its recording value exchange function through three user-driven levels, namely user, system, and transaction.
In the last few years, two technological events emerged. First, the rising of Industry 4.0 concepts and technologies such as IoT allowed the direct link between machines on the shop floor, establishing a machine-to-machine communication (M2M). Second, blockchain enables transactions such payments and contracts without a formal reliable or accreditation institutions, such as banks or government. Goal: The goal of this paper is to explore the state-of-art of the blockchain technology applied to the manufacture sector. In this sense, the option of the M2M transaction being intermediated by blockchain on the shop floor is a hypothesis to be tested. Moreover, it could be questioned if these subjects are being appreciated by the academia. Design / Methodology / Approach: a systematic review of the literature was conducted, considering blockchain, the industrial context, and the Industry 4.0 related technologies. Results: As a result, only 12 papers that were classified according to their application fields and practice stages were obtained. Limitations of the investigation: this field of application is brand new; thus, the available literature is scarce; only 12 papers were obtained. Practical implications: As the main result, it was identified that the possibilities of blockchain applications to Industry have been poorly explored by literature. Originality / Value: The paper addresses the possibility of application of blockchain in M2M-based manufacture, and detaches the research gap in the academic literature related to it.
The Physical Internet and hyperconnected logistics concepts promise an open, more efficient, and environmentally friendly supply chain for goods. Blockchain and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies are increasingly regarded as main enablers of improvements in this domain. We describe how blockchain and smart contracts present the potential of being applied to hyperconnected logistics by showing a concrete example of its implementation.
Ivan JovoviÄ, SiniĆĄa Husnjak, Ivan Forenbacher, Sven MaÄek
The Industry 4.0 is experiencing significant challenges, including the need for an increased amount of data transmission with improved security, transparency and credibility. The 5th Generation Mobile Network (5G) and Blockchain are innovative emerging technologies that can respond to these needs. 5
Md. Mehedi Hassan Onik, ChulâSoo Kim, Jinhong Yang
Fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) promises a connected and smart manufacturing system where internet, machine (physical system) and humans lumped together. Unlike other industrial revolutions, this industrial revolution deals more with information. Device to device (D2D) and Machine to Machine (M2M) communications often generate, preserve and share private information. Personal data has already turned out to be a new commodity and currently identified as a ânew oilâ or ânew domain of warfareâ. The more information gets generated and accumulated, the more extensive and risky the personal information becomes. Although privacy and security are often bundled together, they are different. This study investigates the privacy attack surfaces of key Industry 4.0 components (i.e. Cyber-Physical System, Artificial Intelligence, additive manufacturing, autonomous vehicle, big data, cloud computing, internet of things, distributed ledger etc). Multi-dimensional privacy challenges, data breaching incidents, regulations and need of a contextual privacy awareness is discussed in this study. Finally, this work elaborates the risk of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) leaking in the era of industry 4.0.
Open access
Blockchain Technology Applications and Security
Digital Transformation in Industry
Physical Unclonable Functions (PUFs) and Hardware Security
A product lifecycle can be understood as a chain of events experienced by a product. These events do not only include the actual production but also service offerings which accompany the product throughout its life. This leads to integrated product and service offerings and Industrial Product Service Systems (IPS2). Major challenges in this context are product tracking and tracing, the triggering of service and the delivery of service. A new technology that holds much promise in addressing these challenges is blockchain. In response, this study first introduces blockchain technology before it discusses major opportunities in the context of IPS2. For example, blockchain inherently creates a synchronized database of all transaction at each node while smart contracts allow for responsive action. However, there are also challenges. For example, large amounts of redundant data, irreversible contracts and, consequently, reduced competition. While blockchain holds much promise, more needs to be done to unlock its full potential in the context of IPS2.
Abhinaw Sai Erri Pradeep, Tak Wing Yiu, Robert Amor
Building Information Modelling (BIM) involves the exchange of models and information between stakeholders and within collaborating teams. This information is prone to contractual, legal, security and system issues amongst others. The existing practices aim to address a digital concept such as BIM with solutions from the paper worldcontracts and other documents, which do not solve the problem completely. A recent advancement in database management -Blockchain Technology (BCT) aims to provide a new stream of solutions to industries across various sectors. BCT is a system of recording a database that stores information chronologically and distributes a copy of it over a network of computers that maintain its authenticity and security collectively. This paper first reviews the literature on the issues of information exchange in a BIM workflow and next explores the concept of BCT and its connection with BIM. The literature indicates that BCT shows high potential for solving challenges during the design phase of the project by clarifying liabilities, increasing the reliability of information and enhancing the security of information flow. Its ability to incorporate self-executing contracts enable many more applications around ownership and payments. Finally, the paper discusses a few of its challenges with scalability, user acceptance amongst others.
The blockchain is a distributed ledger managed by a peer to peer network that stores all transaction records. The distributed ledger technology offers new possibilities, promising to ensure that data is secure, decentralized and incomparable. In the Architecture, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry, Building Information Modeling (BIM) has quickly become a standard platform where all parties work together on a single and shared model for collaboration. The issues of Supply Chain Management (SCM) within BIM can be identified in BIM maturity level, based on PAS1193 that developed through Common Data Environment (CDE). The research strategy is to make model and simulation of SCM using BIM and create CDE to become decentralized and integrate the blockchain technology. The smart contract system validates every material and configuration of components within the model from the design stage until the operation stage. Traceability and auditability through an immutable historic eventually be more visible and allow real-time tracking of a material to a construction site providing a history from the origin.
Nejc RoĆŸman, Rok VrabiÄ, Marko Corn, TomaĆŸ PoĆŸrl · 5 authors
This paper presents an approach to integrating Blockchain and IoT technologies into modern supply chains. We propose the concept of a new logistics platform that is built as a distributed network of nodes and offers an alternative approach dealing with the complexity of modern supply chains by breaking them into smaller, functionally independent parts. The modular structure of the platform allows users to add their own nodes or extend the functionality of the existing ones. Nodes are communicating with the use of IoT technology, which serves as a bridge between the virtual and real worlds, making this platform truly digital. Blockchain technology is not only used for writing down agreements and for making transactions, but also as a trustworthy public listing of services and information. It connects the nodes into a public and secure system that provides reliable services of a supply chain. In this work, we describe the individual nodes and their implementation and present preliminary results of experiments using a laboratory model of a logistic chain.
Ali Vatankhah Barenji, Hanyang Guo, Zonggui Tian, Zhi Li · 6 authors
Recently, there has been growing interest in the field of cloud manufacturing (CM) amongst researchers in the manufacturing community. Cloud manufacturing is a customer-driven manufacturing model that was inspired by cloud computing, and its major objective was to provide ubiquitous on-demand access to services. However, the current CM architecture suffers from problems that are associated with a centralized based industrial network framework and third part operation. In a nutshell, centralized networking has had issues with flexibility, efficiency, availability, and security. Therefore, this paper aims to tackle these problems by introducing an ongoing project to a decentralized network architecture for cloud manufacturing which is based on the blockchain technology. In essence, this research paper introduces the blockchain technology as a decentralized peer to peer network for multiple cloud manufacturing providers.
An inclusive project is classified and alienated into several tasks where as task management is one of the foremost components of project management, since the roles and tasks assigned by the manager of this component to each employee working on a project. In scrupulous there are several ways to track the status of work and this monitoring is also required to find the efficiency of an individual and at the time of the annual and mid- term appraisal and all these monitoring records can be used to give qualifications to associates and employees. In this work, the authors have proposed a system along with the solution based on the ERC20 token which is identified as blockchain platform based on Ethereum in which they can implement Project Task Management which is tamper proof and as well as can track the assigned task of an employee on real time basis.
In order to increase the level of global competitiveness and improve the performance of production system, a large number of manufacturing companies have implemented world class manufacturing (WCM) approach, which has developed based on the third industrial revolution and the need for mass production. The evolution in production equipment and communication technologies, and the demand of markets for personalized mass production, have forced manufacturing companies to transform their production systems and prepare for a revolution. This revolution, known as Industry 4.0 (I4.0), or the digital transformation, has been introduced as a new type of organization of manufacturing systems that is more flexible and agile, and is based on using large amounts of information and data in the decision-making process. One of the main characteristics of this concept is decentralization, which allows different subsystems to make decisions autonomously in order to have self-organization systems. There are some important differences between the principles of WCM and I4.0. World class manufacturing is mainly based on continuous improvement and cost reduction, without a global vision for profit optimization. Industry 4.0 is mainly based on using all accessible information and data of systems and making decentralized decisions, but it also involves a global vision and a systemic approach to global profit optimization. However, achieving these objectives takes a very long time, and the challenges are numerous. As with all projects, for a transformation project to succeed, it is very important to define the transition phase and the way to change and introduce these new principles. This paper presents part of our research project, in collaboration with the Fiat Powertrain Technologies company, concerning the transformation of their production system toward the factory of the future. We highlight the design principles of I4.0 and the potential of the WCM system for transformation and achieving development of the characteristics of I4.0. We focus on five of the principal technical pillars of WCM and the steps in their development, and present some modifications in adoption of the design principles of I4.0. An example of change in the professional maintenance pillar of WCM is also presented.
The persistent development towards decreasing batch sizes due to an ongoing product individualization, as well as increasingly dynamic market and competitive conditions lead to new changeability requirements in production environments. Since each of the individualized products might require different base materials or components and manufacturing resources, the paths of the products going through the factory as well as the required internal transport and material supply processes are going to differ for every product. Conventional planning and control systems, which rely on predefined processes and central decision-making, are not capable to deal with the arising systemâs complexity along the dimensions of changing goods, layouts and throughput requirements. The concepts of âself-organizationâ in combination with âautonomous controlâ provide promising solutions to solve these new requirements by using among other things the potential of autonomous, decentralized and target-optimized decision-making. A major enabler for the development towards autonomous changeable intralogistics systems are intelligent logistical objects (e.g. smart products, bins and conveyor systems) which are able to communicate and interact with each other as well as with human workers. To investigate the potential of automation and human-robot collaboration for intralogistics, a research project for the development of a collaborative tugger train has been started at the ESB Logistics Learning Factory in line with various student projects in neighboring research areas. This collaborative tugger train system in combination with other manual (e.g. handcarts) and (semi-)automated conveyor systems (e.g. automated guided forklift) will be integrated into a dynamic, self-organized scenario with varying production batch sizes to develop a method for target-oriented self-organization and autonomous control of intralogistics systems. For a structured investigation of self-organized scenarios a generic intralogistics model as well as a criteria catalogue has been developed. The ESB Logistics Learning will serve as a practice-oriented research, validation and demonstration environment for these purposes.
It has been ten years since Satoshi Nakamoto created bitcoin and introduced the concept of a blockchain. The original goal was to propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. Now, Blockchain proves to have the capacity to deliver a new kind of trust to a wide range of services. Applications are being explored in healthcare (patient records), government (land registries) and electronics (Internet of Things). The supply chain is one of the fields that Blockchain is expected to be applied. The paper aims to combine blockchain with distributed storage and propose blockchain for the supply chain. Blockchain is not fit to record a lot of information. It requires both on-chain storage of the core ledger data and off-chain storage of data required by smart contracts for verification and documentation. The Inter Planetary File System (IPFS) is a concrete solution. IPFS is a peer-to-peer distributed file system that seeks to connect all computing devices with the same system of files. Participants can address large amounts of data with IPFS and place the immutable, permanent IPFS links into a blockchain transaction. This timestamps and secures their content, without having to put the data itself on the chain. By combining blockchain with distributed storage, the supply chain system is fit to the industry of the next generation. The characteristics of Industry 4.0 meets the blockchain-based system and the model can aid these changes.
Industry 4.0 is a concept devised for improving the way modern factories operate through the use of some of the latest technologies, like the ones used for creating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), robotics, or Big Data applications. One of such technologies is blockchain, which is able to add trust, security, and decentralization to different industrial fields. This article focuses on analyzing the benefits and challenges that arise when using blockchain and smart contracts to develop Industry 4.0 applications. In addition, this paper presents a thorough review of the most relevant blockchain-based applications for Industry 4.0 technologies. Thus, its aim is to provide a detailed guide for the future Industry 4.0 developers that allows for determining how the blockchain can enhance the next generation of cybersecure industrial applications.
The Industry 4.0 concept describes a decentralized production chain that extends from design to the supply chain, production, distribution as well as customer service. Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) employ software and internet-connected machines that communicate in real-time to reduce error rates and increase efficiency. The basis is the co-operation of separate control units that are capable of autonomous decision-making, managing the assigned technological unit and in particular becoming an independent and full member of comprehensive production units. The Industry 4.0 concept requires continuous innovation and education that not only depends on the peoplesâ skills but also on organizational culture. Appropriate managerial approaches play a vital role in the development of organizational culture. Most studies discuss technical aspects, but do not pay attention to managerial approaches and organizational culture, which are a major factor influencing the success of this concept. The aim of the paper is to examine the level of organizational culture in the Czech Republic and to seek appropriate managerial approaches for the development of organizational culture that can support the environment for innovation in the organization and therefore facilitate the entrepreneurship in the Industry 4.0 concept. A partial goal will be, among other things, to identify the implications of Industry 4.0 for human resources. In order to determine organizational culture in organizations, a large study was carried out in the form of a questionnaire survey â the Czech translation of Wallachៜs Questionnaire (1983). According to the findings, the respondents perceive the organizational culture in the organizations under review is more bureaucratic and supportive than innovative. In their view the signs of innovative culture are not so striking. It is necessary to change managerial approaches to support innovative solutions.
The rise of fraudulent cases seems to be a nuisance to an organization as they're an investment of money. Various resources also gives the impression to be on someone else, who has false claims. The verification process of these organizations are long and tedious process where the organization would have lost its time and resource on. Blockchain technology was introduced fairly recently in literature, which is the underlying technology behind the very popular cryptocurrency Bitcoin. The blockchain is a decentralized approach, it is secured by design network which was to overcome double spending problem by a central server. The concept of servers is eradicated in this architecture, where the data is distributed across geographically on separate ledgers. Blockchain applications have diversified as MIT Media Labs introduced Blockcerts for certification of academic records. Ethereum is platform for developing these decentralized applications using Blockchain ledgers. Ethereum uses a concept called Merkle trees which is the concept used for verification through hashing. As per the working in the literature; this application would make verification of academic documents simple and quick with the usage of Blockchain clients such as Ethereum and an IPFS hash. In this paper we propose a system that provides a solution that addresses the above mentioned issues.
Cyber-physical systems (CPS), robotics, Internet of Things, information and communication technologies have become more and more popular over the last several years. These topics open new perspectives and scenarios that can automate processes in human life. CPS are aimed at interaction support in information space for physical entities communicated in physical space in real time. At the same time the blockchain technology that becomes popular last years allows to organize immutable distributed database that store all significant information and provide access for CPS participants. The paper proposes an approach that is based on ontology-based context management, publish/subscribe semantic interoperability support, and blockchain techniques. Utilization of these techniques provide possibilities to develop CPS that supports dynamic, distributed, and stable coalition formation of the resources. The case study presented has been implemented for the scenario of heterogeneous mobile robotsâ collaboration for the overcoming of obstacles. There are two types of robots and an information service participating in the scenario. Evaluation shows that the proposed approach is applicable for the presented class of scenarios.
Maxim Ya. Afanasev, Anastasiya A. Krylova, Sergey A. Shorokhov, Yuri V. Fedosov · 5 authors
The concept of cyber-physical production systems is highly discussed amongst researchers and industry experts, however, the implementation options for these systems rely mainly on obsolete technologies. Despite the fact that the blockchain is most often associated with cryptocurrency, it is fundamentally wrong to deny the universality of this technology and the prospects for its application in other industries. For example, in the insurance sector or in a number of identity verification services. This article discusses the deployment of the CPPS backbone network based on the Ethereum private blockchain system. The structure of the network is described as well as its interaction with the help of smart contracts, based on the consumption of cryptocurrency for various operations.