Synchroperation in industry 4.0 manufacturing

Industry 4.0 connotes a new industrial revolution with the convergence between physical and digital spaces, which is revolutionizing the way that production operations are managed. The requirement of increased productivity, improved flexibility and resilience, and reduced cost in Industry 4.0 manufacturing calls for new paradigms that comply with the changing of production and operations management. In this paper, a concept of synchroperation, which is defined as “synchronized operations in an agile, resilient and cost-efficient way, with the spatiotemporal synchronization of men, machines and materials as well as data-driven decision-making, by creating, establishing and utilizing cyber-physical visibility and traceability in operations management”, is proposed as a new paradigm of production and operations management for Industry 4.0 manufacturing. A Hyperconnected Physical Internet-enabled Smart Manufacturing Platform (HPISMP) is developed as a technical solution to support manufacturing synchroperation. Graduation Intelligent Manufacturing System (GiMS) with divide and conquer principles is proposed to address the complex, stochastic, and dynamic nature of manufacturing for achieving synchroperation. An industrial case is carried out to validate the effectiveness of the proposed concept and method. This article provides insight into exploring production and operations management in the era of Industry 4.0.