When Operation Technology Meets Information Technology: Challenges and Opportunities

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic of the paper is in line with the scope of the journal. The subject of the paper is interesting but major revisions have to be done by the authors in order to improve the quality of the paper so as to be considered for publication.

·         The authors should elaborate the abstract to briefly introduce the reader to the situation, to the literature gap and the identified challenges (based on the literature). Then the scope of the paper follows, and the abstract concludes.

·         The authors are asked to explain all the abbreviations the first time they refer to them within the body of the paper and in the keywords as well (e.g., TSN, ULL)

·         Please elaborate the first sentences of the Introduction and introduce the reader to the current industrial landscape (i.e., Industry 4.0) and refer to the challenges that emphasize the need for the current research work. Avoid using 3 references to validate the content of just one sentence. You may find useful material on Industry 4.0 case studies at the following and recently published book.

o   Mourtzis, Dimitris (Book). Design and operation of production networks for mass personalization in the era of cloud technology (2021), pp. 1 - 393.

DOI: 10.1016/C2019-0-05325-3

·         The authors should present in a clear manner the challenges, the research questions and the literature gap. The introduction can be considered obsolete.

·         Which is the purpose of Section 2? Is it a Literature Review Section? The authors begin with the Impact of I4.0 on EU companies. The authors are kindly asked to ensure the smooth information flow between the sections of the paper.

·         The literature background of the paper is questionable and has to be strengthened. More specifically, the authors should include details about the definition, the origins, the evolution and the convergence of OT and IT.

o   Lanza, G., Ferdows, K., Kara, S., Mourtzis, D., Schuh, G., Váncza, J., Wang, L. and Wiendahl, H.P., 2019. Global production networks: Design and operation. CIRP annals, 68(2), pp.823-841.

o   Dimitris Mourtzis (2020) Simulation in the design and operation of manufacturing systems: state of the art and new trends, International Journal of Production Research, 58:7, 1927-1949, DOI: 10.1080/00207543.2019.1636321

o   https://www.gartner.com/en/information-technology/glossary/operational-technology-ot

o   Hahn, A. (2016). Operational Technology and Information Technology in Industrial Control Systems. In: Colbert, E., Kott, A. (eds) Cyber-security of SCADA and Other Industrial Control Systems. Advances in Information Security, vol 66. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32125-7_4

·         Similarly, the authors should include a framework to present OT in context and its relationship with IT.

·         Section 3 describing RAMI 4.0 and key communication protocols such as OPC UA can be considered as common knowledge. Which is exactly the contribution of this section?

·         Avoid phrases such as “it has become clear to everyone that”.

·         The authors should add a detailed Figure of the proposed System Architecture. Figure 2 and 3 at the current version of the paper are at an abstract level. Please elaborate (especially Figure 3).

·         The presented case study is a “what if/supposed scenario”. There are no results of the proposed method and therefore the applicability of the proposed method can not be validated.

·         The authors claim that by combining AAS with OPC UA they are capable of developing a digital twin. However, no information is presented in the paper for this issue. Please elaborate and describe the potential digital twin in a very detailed manner.

·         The authors should elaborate the industrial use-case scenario. Moreover, the authors state that the proposed solution allows to grant flexibility, reconfigurability and reduction of human intervention to a minimum level.

·         The authors should add future work ideas at the end of the conclusion.

·         Please highlight the limitations of the study.

·         It is suggested to proofread the paper as there are several syntax and grammar errors.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The article touches on a very interesting topic, and reading it makes it possible to identify the main trends in the area of communicating industrial OT elements and IT systems with each other. Below are the main comments on the article:

 - The authors have done a solid job in the area of literature analysis and description of the current state of the art - in fact, this represents 80% of the article. And here I have a doubt - how to treat this article: in terms of a literature review or perhaps as a research paper ?

- If we were to treat the proposed approach in terms of a review article, then this article lacks, among other things, a slightly broader understanding of the topic, the introduction of the meodology of the review of the work and the definition of comparative criteria.

If we were to treat this article in terms of a research paper, then in the article we cannot find a sufficiently precise objective of the research conducted - i.e. to identify a research area whose results we can generalize, for example, in the form of a new model. Instead, we get a certain compilation of existing solutions on the market that summarily solve the problem of production line control. Perhaps the proposed solution has several innovative features and unique solutions, but it has been described in very general terms. At the moment, the presented solution can be treated in terms of a good engineering project, and not viewed as a scientific work. Once again, I emphasize: perhaps such a perception of the work is due to the very parsimonious description of the proposed solution and the ultra-short discussion of the obtained results in Chapter 5 (one paragraph!).

Therefore, if the work was to be treated in terms of a research paper, in addition to a precise description of the proposed solution with an indication of the own contribution that fills some gap in the existing state of knowledge, it is necessary to introduce criteria for evaluating the submitted solution and comparing it with similar solutions available on the market. If there are no such solutions, this should be clearly shown and proven in the work.

The structure of the paper should be more structured with proportions for either a review article or a reserch paper. In both cases, the summary should be much more developed and relates to the text of the previous chapters.

I also have reservations about the editorial:
Example1 - line 13: "....o date. several ben..." without capital letters at the beginning of the sentence.
Example2 line 193: the abbreviation AAS is defined and then in line 194 we use the full name again, in line 197 we again define the abbreviation .... and so on - in addition we put it the list of abbreviations. In summary, in terms of editing, the work should be reviewed and improved.

 In conclusion, I think that the article touches on a very interesting scope, but in its current form, it is not suitable for publication. The authors of the text need to decide what the nature of the work will be and consequently rebuild its structure.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have adequately addressed the comments of the reviewers. The quality of the manuscript has been improved. Therefore, it is recommended that the manuscript is considered to be accepted for publication.

Author Response

Thanks for accepting our revised paper.

Reviewer 2 Report

Unfortunately, but the changes made by the authors to the article have not, in my opinion, improved the article overall. The article continues to be a conglomeration of two major themes: literature review and case study. It lacks clearly indicated scientific aspects. Since the authors want to do an overview of the current situation of Industry 4.0 in the EU and in Italy in particular, I would expect the introduction of a methodology for searching sources, the introduction of different levels and cross-sections of the review of the analyzed literature items and different levels of analysis. This part should end with an extended summary, conclusions that identify trends, indicate challenges, etc. 

 As it continues, Section 4.1 looks like it was tacked on by force without justification. Since this is a case study it should be described in great detail and compared with existing solutions on the market. Now this chapter should be seen in terms of "White Papers" type marketing materials and not a technical case study. 

In conclusion, I believe that the corrections made by the authors are insufficient and in its current form the article is not suitable for publication.

Author Response

Detailed list of Revisions

TO REVIEWER 2

We would like to thank Reviewer 2 for the valuable suggestions, and we would like to respond to the comments as follows.

COMMENT 1: “Unfortunately, but the changes made by the authors to the article have not, in my opinion, improved the article overall. The article continues to be a conglomeration of two major themes: literature review and case study.”

RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer for the valuable comment on the structure of the article. We decided to focus on the case study in order to make the paper a true research paper. Thus, the literature review part has been completely removed.

COMMENT 2: “It lacks clearly indicated scientific aspects.” 

RESPONSE: We carefully revised the manuscript to give it a more scientific slant. In particular, we described the case study in greater detail and compared our solution with the state-of-the-art.

COMMENT 3: “Since the authors want to do an overview of the current situation of Industry 4.0 in the EU and in Italy in particular, I would expect the introduction of a methodology for searching sources, the introduction of different levels and cross-sections of the review of the analyzed literature items and different levels of analysis. This part should end with an extended summary, conclusions that identify trends, indicate challenges, etc.”

RESPONSE: The Section in which we reviewed the current situation of Industry 4.0 in the EU and in Italy has been completely removed. We hope that our document can be now fully characterized as a true research paper.

COMMENT 4: “As it continues, Section 4.1 looks like it was tacked on by force without justification. Since this is a case study it should be described in great detail and compared with existing solutions on the market. Now this chapter should be seen in terms of "White Papers" type marketing materials and not a technical case study.” 

RESPONSE: Section 4.1 has been completely rewritten to describe in detail our case study. Our proposed software architecture is compared with other academic solutions in the “Discussion” Section.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 3

Reviewer 2 Report

The first part of the article has indeed been revised and presents the current situation in the area of OT and IT integration. Of course, this review could have presented a wider range of applied solutions and integration models. Let's just say that this part of the article could be useful for those who are beginning their work in the area of real applications of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. 

However, the second part of the article leaves me with doubts. I don't understand the statements, e.g., (line 465) "Let us suppose to have network cameras connected by OT", (line 492) Let us suppose to have the two lines". I can't tell from reading the text whether the authors have implemented the model in a real environment or are just simulating its hypothetical operation. This should be clarified in the article, the architecture should be presented in detail, perhaps screenshots of key windows of the developed application should be added, etc.

How were the results obtained in Table 1 and 2?

Since in this version of the article the authors have moved away from the review nature of the article towards use-case - they need to describe it in great detail and show how it was implemented in real production conditions.

Author Response

TO REVIEWER 2 

We would like to thank Reviewer 2 for the valuable suggestions, and we would like to respond to the comments as follows. 

COMMENT 1:” The first part of the article has indeed been revised and presents the current situation in the area of OT and IT integration. Of course, this review could have presented a wider range of applied solutions and integration models. Let's just say that this part of the article could be useful for those who are beginning their work in the area of real applications of the Industry 4.0 paradigm. “ 

RESPONSE: We thank the reviewer again for his valuable suggestions regarding the focus to give to the article, more oriented towards showing the use case rather than the state of the art. 

COMMENT 2: “However, the second part of the article leaves me with doubts. I don't understand the statements, e.g., (line 465) "Let us suppose to have network cameras connected by OT", (line 492) Let us suppose to have the two lines". I can't tell from reading the text whether the authors have implemented the model in a real environment or are just simulating its hypothetical operation. This should be clarified in the article, the architecture should be presented in detail, perhaps screenshots of key windows of the developed application should be added, etc.” 

RESPONSE: We agree with the reviewer that there was a lack of detail in the description of the case study. We took a cue from this review to improve it. First, we would like to specify that the use case described in the paper is real and was created thanks to an important company in the Emilia-Romagna Region. The company is a large multinational in the manufacturing sector, which supported the research and supplied the hardware and pilot line to be able to carry out the tests. 

However, the following project is covered by a binding NDA (Non-Disclosable Agreement), for which we cannot show the details of the production line nor the identity of the company. To provide more details for this work, however, we have re-discussed the terms with the company itself, which has agreed to let us expose more details and screenshots of the use case. 

Section 4.2 (as well as full Chapter 4) has been totally rewritten, with details on the hardware and setup used. Screenshots from the Asset Administration Shell have also been added, along with more clarifications and details about the tests. 

COMMENT 3: “How were the results obtained in Table 1 and 2?” 

RESPONSE: Tables 1 and 2 have been merged for a better understanding of the tests, and the description of how it was created, and the interpretation of the results, has been inserted in section 4.2 (approximately line 495 of the latexdiff). 

COMMENT 4: “Since in this version of the article the authors have moved away from the review nature of the article towards use-case - they need to describe it in great detail and show how it was implemented in real production conditions.” 

RESPONSE: As specified in comment 2, chapter 4 has been almost totally rewritten. The use case has been described within its real context in which it was developed, with added screenshots, tests and a better description. 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 4

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have taken into account my suggestions - I believe that in this form the article can be published