Purpose The Industry 4.0 initiative – with its ultimate objective of revolutionizing the supply-chain – putted more emphasis on smart and autonomous systems, creating new opportunities to add flexibility and agility to automatic manufacturing systems. These systems are designed to free...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a programming by demonstration (PbD) system based on 3D stereoscopic vision and inertial sensing that provides a cost-effective pose tracking system, even during error-prone situations, such as camera occlusions. Design/methodology/approach The...

Purpose In the present era of Industry 4.0, the manufacturing automation is moving toward mass production and mass customization through human–robot collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to describe various human–robot collaborative (HRC) techniques and their applicability for various...

Purpose Fillet welding is one of the most widespread types of welding in the industry, which is still carried out manually or automated by contact. This paper aims to describe an online programming system for noncontact fillet welding robots with “U”- and “L”-shaped structures, which...

Purpose This paper aims to put forward a labelling system capable of reflecting the level of different Industry 4.0 (I4.0)features present in a manufacturing system and further propose a comparative index to collectively estimate and compare the system automation level....

Purpose Over the past few decades, lean manufacturing has focussed on being customer-centred and now Lean 4.0 technologies have made it possible for manufacturers to have a deeper view of waste reduction. Technologies such as the internet of things, artificial intelligence, three-dimensional...

Purpose Unmanned aerial vehicles are commonly known as UAVs and drones. Nowadays, industries have begun to realise the operational and economic benefits of drone-enabled tasks. The Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, drones, etc., represent implementable advanced technologies intended to...

Purpose Augmented reality (AR) integrates the digital world with the real world and thus, provides a real-time experience to the users. With AR, the immediate surroundings become a learning platform for the users. The perception of the products has been enhanced many times with AR; thus,...

Purpose Production industries are undergoing a digital transition, referred to as the fourth industrial revolution or Industry 4.0, as a result of rapidly expanding advances in information and communication technology. The purpose of this research is to provide a conceptual insight into the...

Purpose Evaluation of the extent of transformability of an existing system into an industry 4.0 (I4.0) compatible system is indispensable for both the technical and economic planning for implementing I4.0. This paper aims to propose a procedure to evaluate the transformability of an existing...