Modelling and Simulation in Industry 4.0

The advancement of Industry 4.0 and its enabling technologies (e.g., the Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, and Big Data analytics) pose new challenges to the field of simulation due to the increasing complexity of systems to be modelled. Despite several advances in this domain, the literature still lacks a state-of-the-art review of simulation-based approaches in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This paper therefore aims to provide a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications between 2011 and 2018 in the field of modelling and simulation applied in Industry 4.0, with a focus on manufacturing and logistics systems. This review contributes to the literature in two significant ways. First, it provides a broad coverage of current publications on the theme by reviewing 112 papers, using a meta-analysis approach. Moreover, it presents a detailed evaluation of different elements from these publications, including research activities (application area, methods, frameworks and software tools), gaps and directions. Around 80% of the papers analysed were published in the last two years. Finally, the results suggest that the main simulation approaches used in Industry 4.0 are agent-based or mixed methods and identify Digital Twin (DT) as the most promising simulation technology.