Contribution of Industry 4.0 Technologies in Adopting Metrology 4.0 in Manufacturing Industries

Abstract

The digitalisation of metrological practices is paramount to ensure its full integration to enable various aspects, such as smart factories, online inspections, and real-time calibration, among others, in the manufacturing industry. The study explores various contributions of Industrial Revolution (IR4.0) technologies in digitalising metrological services, the interface between Metrology 4.0 (M4.0) and IR4.0, and M4.0 adoption factors. After the screening process, fifty six scientific publications from Scopus, Open Science, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar databases were involved in the study. It was found that the development of M4.0 and IR4.0 influence one another. For example, deploying inline metrology is critical to ensure real-time inspection, problem identification, and rectification to enable smart factories. Several critical factors were also identified to enable developing countries to adopt M4.0. The factors include the availability of a skilled workforce, infrastructure, management commitment, awareness of IR4.0 technologies, flexible organisation culture, investment capital, M4.0 standards, and norms for widespread adoption. Moreover, the study found several contributions of IR4.0 technologies in digitalising metrological practices in manufacturing industries, such as the inspection process, calibration of industrial measurement instruments, testing, traceability, and process monitoring. Among the IR4.0 technologies, three major contributors to digitalising several metrological practices, including the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Big data analytics, and artificial intelligence. Technologies such as cyber security, autonomous systems, and additive manufacturing are essential to ensure M4.0 adoption, thus necessitating future studies on their contribution to the adoption process. It is paramount for developing countries to set a systematic roadmap or framework that considers a holistic paradigm shift to a new metrology approach than adopting solution-based metrological practices.