Although it has been argued that the design of production systems is crucial, there is a general lack of empirical studies analysing and identifying resources and capabilities required for an efficient production system design process. One of these resources is the critical role attributed to design information and one such capability is how the design information is managed. To address this research gap, this paper reports the results from two in-depth case studies in the automotive industry focusing on the management of design information in the production system design process. Our results show that design information management needs to be understood as a multidimensional concept having three dimensions: acquiring, sharing and using design information. By focusing on the three dimensions, six characteristics affecting the management of design information when designing the production system are identified. The characteristics are information type, source of information, communication medium, formalisation, information quality and pragmatic information.

Industry 4.0 digital technologies are becoming indispensable for firms striving to enhance their supply chain capabilities and financial performance, but how these relationships play out in practice remains unclear. To address this issue, this study assesses the relationship between supply chain integration, supply chain agility, and financial performance from a dynamic capability perspective. Further analyses are conducted to establish whether Industry 4.0 digital technologies moderate the association between (a) supply chain integration and supply chain agility and (b) supply chain agility and financial performance. Findings based on the data pertaining to a sample of 274 Swedish manufacturing firms indicate that supply chain agility fully mediates the link between supply chain integration and financial performance. However, while Industry 4.0 digital technologies strengthen the effect of supply chain agility on financial performance, they do not moderate the relationship between supply chain integration and supply chain agility. These findings contribute to the ongoing debate regarding how digital technologies play a role in achieving competitive advantage in interplay with dynamic capabilities related to the supply chain. These findings are relevant for decision-makers, as they address the need for organisational adjustments beyond the mere introduction of Industry 4.0 technologies to fully reap their benefits.

The aim of this paper is to categorise difficulties related to release and use of information for materials supply systems design during product development projects as well as specific approaches to deal with them. In the literature it has been argued that materials supply systems design should form one dimension of concurrent engineering and be coordinated with product and production systems design although little research on how to manage it has been presented. The research presented in this paper is based on multiple sources of data, mainly gathered by means of three case studies conducted at two companies from the automotive industry. The difficulties are categorised in terms of whether or not they are related to a concurrent engineering context. The approaches are categorised with regard to whether or not they focus on difficulties related to a concurrent engineering context, and whether or not they focus on the materials supply systems designers and their work.

The aim of this paper is to analyse how materials supply systems can be evaluated during product development projects in a concurrent engineering context. The focus is on performance assessment of materials supply systems and the input data required. A case study was conducted in close cooperation with a company and two performance measures were assessed during the concept definition phase and recalculated during the product and process validation phase. The results show that preliminary input data can be used to calculate performance measures by means of the following approaches: indicators, standards or scenarios. Furthermore, it is discussed how performance assessment can assist the materials supply systems design process in a concurrent engineering context by facilitating early problem discovery, early decision-making, and common understanding.

This paper focuses on the design of materials supply systems in product development projects. In order to design the materials supply system in parallel with the product, product data must be available to the materials supply systems designers. The aim of this paper is to analyse the information quality of the required product data and to indicate how this information quality can be increased. Empirical data have been gathered through case studies conducted within the Manufacturing Industry. The empirical data show that it is possible to identify the product data required for materials supply systems design. It is also shown that there is an information gap between design engineering and materials supply systems design. The information quality of the required product data for the materials supply systems design has many imperfections, mainly in terms of accessibility, ease of operation, timeliness, understandability, interpretability, relevancy, and completeness. The information quality can be improved by the use of PDM systems, which are especially useful for facilitating an increase in accessibility, ease of operation, and timeliness.

Despite the various barriers that seem to hamper integration between product designers and environmental specialists, few studies have addressed how different mechanisms may reduce these barriers. This paper focuses on such mechanisms, specifically addressing product development within the electronics industry. On the basis of empirical case studies, different mechanisms are addressed regarding their potential to support integration between product designers and environmental specialists. Consistent with the literature on conventional product development, the findings indicate that both organizational mechanisms and technological mechanisms seem valid for facilitating such integration.

This systematic review intends to identify how sustainable manufacturing research is contributing to the development of the Industry 4.0 agenda and for a broader understanding about the links between the Industry 4.0 and Sustainable Manufacturing by mapping and summarising existing research efforts, identifying research agendas, as well as gaps and opportunities for research development. A conceptual framework formed by the principles and technological pillars of Industry 4.0, sustainable manufacturing scope, opportunities previously identified, and sustainability dimensions, guided analysis of 35 papers from 2008–2018, selected by a systematic approach. Bibliometrics data and social network analysis complement results identifying how research is being organised and its respective research agendas, relevant publications, and status of the research lifecycle. Results point to that the current research is aligned with the goals defined by different national industrial programs. There are, however, research gaps and opportunities for field development, becoming more mature and having a significant contribution to fully developing the agenda of Industry 4.0. 

There is no consensus on the supply chain management definition of resilience. To aid in evaluating thedynamic behaviour of such systems we need to establish clearly elucidated performance criteria thatencapsulate the attributes of resilience. A literature review establishes the latter as readiness, responsivenessand recovery. We also identify robustness as a necessary condition that would complement resilience. We findthat the Integral of the Time Absolute Error (ITAE) is an appropriate control engineering measure ofresilience when it is applied to inventory levels and shipment rates. We use the ITAE to evaluate an often usedbenchmark model of make-to-stock supply chains consisting of three decision parameters. We use both linearand nonlinear forms of the model in our evaluation. Our findings suggest that optimum solutions for resiliencedo not yield a system that is robust to uncertainties in lead-time. Hence supply chains will experience drasticchanges in their resilience performance when lead-time changes.

Dynamic modelling of production-inventory systems usually involves lead time models since this is one of the most important aspects of these systems. Many different models are possible and this paper presents an overview and some ideas for how the models may be interpreted. Three different approaches to continuous-time dynamic modelling of variable lead times based on Control Theory are discussed. Two of the models can easily be incorporated into linear models based on the Laplace transform. The models are shown to be three instances of a generic delay model, which by careful selection of two parameters can be adapted to a wide variety of systems. Also the relation between waiting line theory concepts and the generic delay model is analysed, establishing an interpretation of the models as generating the concept of expected dynamic behaviour.

In this paper we analyse the use of form postponement based on the positioning of the differentiation point and stocking policy. Six classes of manufacturing configurations are identified based on the choice of whether or not form postponement is employed and the decision regarding the stocking policy for the final product configurations as well as for the generic component. Analytical evaluation methods based on queuing models are used to assess operational measures for each class of configuration and solution algorithms are developed todetermine the optimal positioning of the differentiation point and the optimalstocking levels. This allows us to compare the relative merits of all manufacturingconfigurations based on their respective best performances. The results of anumerical experiment show how different operational parameters may influencethe choice of optimal configuration, the preference of early or late postponement,and the relative cost savings obtained from employing form postponement.