Large-Scale Production Systems: Sustainable Manufacturing and Service

Dear Colleagues,

Nowadays sustainability is a crucial issue influencing the development of new concepts, models, perspectives, and decision-support systems in manufacturing. This is an important goal in commercial strategy and operations, with applications from supply chain network design to production system management, including maintenance-related aspects. In particular, large-scale manufacturing facilities are responsible for consuming many environmental, energetic, and economic resources due to their wide spatial distribution, division of labor, extensive use of machinery, and multitude of components. Consequently, it is imperative to develop new strategies (or to demonstrate the adoption of existing ones) for enhancing the efficiency of manufacturing activities and services within large-scale production systems (LSPSs), mitigating the negative impact of LSPSs on global sustainability. LSPSs are industrial and engineering systems composed of numerous interconnected components (subsystems) that work in a coordinated way, often from remote locations, over extensive areas, all while operating under resource constraints. Examples of LSPSs include (but are not limited to) water distribution systems, large automotive manufacturing plants, large dairy production systems, textile industries, iron and steel industries, oil and gas systems, food processing systems, etc.

Modern LSPSs can benefit from the widespread use of digital technologies driving the Industry 4.0 paradigm, such as IoT-enabled tools, big data architectures, digital connectivity, blockchain, and cyber–physical systems, to achieve more sustainable production and consumption patterns. However, it is worth mentioning that sustainable development within LSPSs is a hard task due to several challenges. First, due to intricate interdependencies among components, LSPSs are prone to suffering from various faults, where even failure to detect a single component’s failure can damage the functioning of the entire LSPS (causing downtimes, financial losses, and safety hazards for both operators and environment). Therefore, to ensure the efficiency and sustainability of manufacturing and services within LSPSs, maintenance strategies must be optimized. Furthermore, beyond the need to ensure the proper functioning of individual components (based on pre-defined conditions), LSPSs require the adoption of strategic operational and control approaches. Particularly, depending on the available resources, operational and control strategies must be devised that allow for meeting specific demands effectively.

These challenges pose the need to investigate new progress and trends to increase the sustainability of LSPSs. Therefore, this Special Issue aims to present novel ideas and experimental results in the domain of the sustainable development of manufacturing and services within LSPSs, including both theoretical and practical investigations. Additionally, ideas conceived for improving the sustainability of lower-scale industrial plants, extensible to LSPSs, are appreciated. In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Simone Arena
Dr. Alessandra Cantini
Dr. Filippo De Carlo
Guest Editors

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• large-scale production systems
• big size plants
• sustainable manufacturing
• sustainable services
• operations management
• industrial plants