Innovation landscape and challenges of smart technologies and systems – a European perspective

Latest developments in smart sensor and actuator technologies are expected to lead a revolution in future manufacturing systems’ abilities and efficiency, often to as Industry 4.0. Smart technologies with higher degrees of autonomy be essential to achieve the next breakthrough in both agility and productivity., the technologies will also bring substantial design and integration and novelty risks to manufacturing businesses. The aim of this paper is analyse the current landscape and to identify the challenges for introducing technologies into manufacturing systems in Europe. Expert knowledge from industrial and academic practitioners in the field was extracted using an online. Feedback from a workshop was used to triangulate and extend the survey. The findings indicate three main challenges for the ubiquitous of smart technologies in manufacturing are: i) the perceived risk novel technologies, ii) the complexity of integration, and iii) the consideration human factors. Recommendations are made based on these findings to transform landscape for smart manufacturing.