Authors Klaus-Dieter Thoben and Stefan Wiesner from BIBA as well as Thorsten Wuest from West Virginia University win the IJAT Review Award 2018 for their paper “'Industrie 4.0' and Smart Manufacturing - A Review of Research Issues and Application Examples”. The award is presented for the third time to the most prominent review paper of the last two years, selected among the articles from the International Journal of Automation Technology. The journal focuses on advanced automation technologies ranging from basic techniques to a variety of applications meeting industrial requirements, e.g. for production, logistics and control systems. For a long time, BIBA and West Virginia University have contributed to the field of digitalization of industrial production through research projects and publications. The awarded paper provides an overview of Industrie 4.0 in Germany and smart manufacturing programs in the USA, analyzes the application potential of cyber-physical systems starting from product design through production and logistics up to maintenance and exploitation (e.g., recycling), and identifies current and future research issues. Besides the technological perspective, the paper also takes into account the economic side considering the new business strategies and models available. To achieve these objectives, the paper presents a literature review on the corresponding state-of-the-art and a study on application scenarios from research and industries, such as cyber-physical logistics systems and safe human-robot interaction. The authors are honored by the award, recognizing the outstanding quality of research on the digitalization of industrial production by BIBA and the West Virginia University.

Thoben K-D, Wiesner S, Wuest T (2017) “Industrie 4.0” and Smart Manufacturing – A Review of Research Issues and Application Examples. IJAT 11:4–16.

doi:10.20965/ijat.2017.p0004