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The idea of Industry 4.0, which was introduced just a few years ago, has triggered not just a wide campaign of research, development and innovation in academic institutions and industry in the field of manufacturing but it has also contributed to a changed, encouraging perception of industrial development in the eyes of politicians and the general public on the global scale. These facts give to all involved a clear motivation and dictate a thorough and prompt reaction to the issues and challenges of the envisaged industrial transformation. The aim of the contribution is to give an introduction into the Industry 4.0 topic from the author’s perspective and to discuss the challenges, issues and opportunities of the emerging new manufacturing paradigm. Some cases from research and industry will be presented in order to illustrate approaches and potentials of the Industry 4.0 transformation.
Short CV:
Professor Peter Butala received the Dipl. Eng., MSc. and Dr.Sc. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He had been active for several years in industry, in particular in the Litostroj Holding Company, Ljubljana, Slovenia, managing R&D. Currently, he is a full professor at the Department of Cybernetics, Mechatronics and Production Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He spent some time as a visiting professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. His research interests include mechatronics, manufacturing, remanufacturing and assembly systems. Current research topics are related to distributed manufacturing, networked production, cyber-physical systems, Big Data, and application of engineering methods in medicine. He participated in several international and national research projects and published over two hundreds scientific papers and conference contributions. He received several national and international innovation awards and is a Fellow of The International Academy for Production Engineering CIRP.
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