FOG COMPUTING: THE KEYSTONE FOR THE FUTURE OF INDUSTRIAL IoT. IMPACTS ON LEAN PRODUCTION ENVIRONMENTS.

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial revolution dominates the current discussion of researchers on manufacturing. At the same time, worldwide companies are becoming aware of the importance of Industrial IoT (IIoT) for competitive advantages. Even Governments have assumed an important role in the field and set themselves as promoters of technological change with policies in favor of industrial digitalization. In this scenario, Industrial IoT is driving the need for extensive adoption of advanced IT features across multiple Industry verticals. Moreover, in companies that apply Lean production concepts, IIoT accelerates Lean benefits. The research gives an overview over existing combination of Industry 4.0 and Lean production, through Fog computing technology. Fog computing brings many Cloud IT features close to industrial processes and merges those with real-time features, increasing production efficiency. Fog Computing was introduced by Cisco in 2014 and a startup located in Silicon Valley, Nebbiolo Technologies, was the first pioneer on developing this new technology. This company is deploying it in different industrial applications. Considering the industrial automation, this thesis wants to underline the improvements and changes within corporate organizational structure resulting from the application of Fog computing. Furthermore, this paper wants to validate the quantitative and qualitative data from two case studies deployed in worldwide companies: one in food industry and the other in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical sector.