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Maintenance 4.0 Technologies for Sustainable Manufacturing: Second Edition

A special issue of Applied Sciences (ISSN 2076-3417). This special issue belongs to the section "Applied Industrial Technologies".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 May 2025 | Viewed by 1998

Special Issue Editor

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Manufacturing companies and equipment manufacturers face two major trends affecting their business: digitalization and sustainability. The literature on production refers to digitalization as one of the pillars of the next (fourth) Industrial Revolution. In the Industry 4.0 era, manufacturing systems are able to monitor physical processes and make smart decisions through real-time communication and cooperation with humans, machines, sensors, etc. The second major trend affecting manufacturers is sustainability. In the sustainable development environment, there has been an increased pressure on manufacturing companies to think beyond traditional economic measures and evaluate environmental and social effects of the business.

In this context, various initiatives and approaches are set up to help companies adopt the principles of the fourth Industrial Revolution with respect to sustainability. Within these actions, the use of contemporary maintenance approaches such as Maintenance 4.0 is highlighted as one of the prevailing sustainable manufacturing topics. Minimized downtime, prolonged machine life, increased production efficiencies, resource utilization, and reduced costs are merely a few promising prospects of Maintenance 4.0 technologies.

The objective of this Special Issue is to present the latest advances and developments of new methods, techniques, systems, and tools dedicated to the application of Maintenance 4.0 technologies for economic, environmental, and social challenges of sustainable manufacturing.

Topics and themes can include but are not limited to:

  • Drivers and barriers for the implementation of Maintenance 4.0 technologies in manufacturing companies;
  • Intelligent decision support for sustainable maintenance practices;
  • Human factors, industrial ergonomics, and safety in smart maintenance;
  • Modeling and simulation of smart maintenance systems;
  • Big Data analytics implementation for sustainable maintenance;
  • Digital-twin-driven intelligent maintenance for sustainability;
  • Internet of Things solutions in maintenance for sustainability;
  • Data-driven maintenance and product lifecycle management systems;
  • Causes and effects of implementing Maintenance 4.0 technologies for sustainable manufacturing.

Dr. Jasiulewicz-Kaczmarek Małgorzata
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Applied Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • predictive maintenance
  • prescriptive maintenance
  • big data analytics
  • digital twin
  • internet of things
  • augmented/virtual reality
  • 3D printing
  • servitization
  • remaining useful life
  • maturity
  • resource efficiency

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

32 pages, 2331 KiB  
Article
Emerging Practices in Risk-Based Maintenance Management Driven by Industrial Transitions: Multi-Case Studies and Reflections
by Idriss El-Thalji
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(3), 1159; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15031159 - 24 Jan 2025
Viewed by 933
Abstract
Risk-based maintenance is a well-known maintenance concept in the oil and gas sector, especially in the Norwegian continental shelf and has been supported by the NORSOK Z-008 standard since 2011. Green transition and Industry 4.0 with its digitization and technology transformations have enforced [...] Read more.
Risk-based maintenance is a well-known maintenance concept in the oil and gas sector, especially in the Norwegian continental shelf and has been supported by the NORSOK Z-008 standard since 2011. Green transition and Industry 4.0 with its digitization and technology transformations have enforced the risk-based maintenance program to be dynamic and emerging. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to identify the impact of Industry 4.0 on risk-based maintenance and define the new emerging version of risk-based maintenance. The study is based on seven case studies that have been conducted between 2017 and 2024 within the Norwegian continental shelf. It is found that Industry 4.0 impacts the entire management loop of risk-based maintenance, it enforces more toward the project phase and built-in features, it enhances the data collection and their fitness to purpose, and it enables reinforcement learning for the entire maintenance management program. On the other hand, it creates a new data flow and increases the system’s complexity, uncertainty, and associated risks. Full article
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16 pages, 7070 KiB  
Article
The Impact of Downtime on the Stability of the Production Schedule
by Piotr Kaźmierczak, Krzysztof Żywicki and Paulina Rewers
Appl. Sci. 2025, 15(1), 150; https://doi.org/10.3390/app15010150 - 27 Dec 2024
Viewed by 754
Abstract
Production scheduling is a fundamental element for the efficient control of material flow in production processes. Research work concerns the approaches, methods and tools used to optimize the loading of production resources with production orders, taking into account various evaluation criteria. From a [...] Read more.
Production scheduling is a fundamental element for the efficient control of material flow in production processes. Research work concerns the approaches, methods and tools used to optimize the loading of production resources with production orders, taking into account various evaluation criteria. From a manufacturers’ point of view, one important objective is to ensure the timely fulfilment of customer orders. The emergence of disruptive factors causing downtime (e.g., machine breakdowns and adjustments) in the realization of production processes negatively affects the realization of this objective. In this case, it is necessary to rebuild the production schedule to make the production capacity more realistic. This paper presents a study on the impact of downtime on production schedules developed according to different principles and rules. The aim was to determine which of these affects the stability of the production schedule, i.e., causing less need for changes as a result of the occurrence of downtime in the execution of production orders. The research experiments were conducted for various production flow models and structures of products and production orders. The subject of this research is important and relevant to the impact and inclusion of maintenance tasks in the operation of production systems. Full article
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