I4.2-GiM: A Novel Green Intelligent Manufacturing Framework for Net Zero

Industry 4.0 is accelerating, with manufacturing enterprises embracing digital transformation and intelligent manufacturing (iM) to enhance competitiveness. Manufacturing enterprises must also improve their environmental performance to meet the goal of net zero by 2050 and to avoid border carbon tax imposed by large economies. Thus, green intelligent manufacturing (GiM), i.e., conducting iM while pursuing to maximize energy conservation and carbon reduction, has become the key development trend and a fundamental challenge for the modern manufacturing industry. To address the challenges of green intelligent manufacturing (GiM), this paper proposes a novel framework called Industry 4.2 for GiM (I4.2-GiM). This framework builds on the Intelligent Factory Automation (
$i$
FA) platform, which the authors developed to achieve zero-defect manufacturing (i.e., Industry 4.1). I4.2-GiM uses various IoT devices, called Cyber-Physical Agents (CPAs), to collect and integrate large amounts of data. It also includes two interrelated systems, an intelligent carbon emission management system (
$i$
CMS) and an intelligent energy management system (
$i$
EMS), simultaneously tackling carbon reduction and energy saving. Existing factory EMSs typically save less than 10% of energy, but I4.2-GiM has been shown to conserve 10.9% of energy and reduce carbon emissions by 12.55% while conducting iM in daily production. I4.2-GiM is a promising new framework that can help manufacturing enterprises approach net zero intelligently.
Note to Practitioners
—This paper proposes a new green intelligent manufacturing (GiM) framework called I4.2-GiM (Industry 4.2 for GiM). I4.2-GiM builds on the Intelligent Factory Automation (
$i$
FA) platform, which the authors developed to achieve zero-defect manufacturing (i.e., Industry 4.1). I4.2-GiM also uses various IoT devices called Cyber-Physical Agents (CPAs) to collect data from multiple sources. It also includes two interrelated systems, an intelligent carbon emission management system (iCMS) and an intelligent energy management system (iEMS), to address carbon reduction and energy saving simultaneously. Moreover, this paper provides a systematic implementation procedure and several practical examples to help practitioners adopt the designs and niches of I4.2-GiM and build their desired GiM systems for reaching the goal of net zero.