From Industry 4.0 Digital Manufacturing to Industry 5.0 Digital Society: a Roadmap Toward Human-Centric, Sustainable, and Resilient Production

Abstract

The present study addresses two critical controversies surrounding the emerging Industry 5.0 agenda. Firstly, it seeks to elucidate the driving forces behind the accelerated momentum of the Industry 5.0 agenda amidst the ongoing digital industrial transformation. Secondly, it explores how the agenda’s sustainability values can be effectively realised. The study conducted a comprehensive content-centric literature synthesis and identified how Industry 4.0 shortcomings adversely impacted sustainability values. Furthermore, the study implements a novel approach that determines how and in what order the sustainability functions of Industry 4.0 should be leveraged to promote the sustainability objectives of Industry 5.0. Results reveal that Industry 4.0 has benefited economic and environmental sustainability values most at the organisational and supply chain levels. Nonetheless, most micro and meso-social sustainability values have been adversely impacted by Industry 4.0. Similarly, Industry 4.0 has been worryingly detrimental to macro sustainability values like social or economic growth equality. These contradictory implications of Industry 4.0 have pulled the Industry 5.0 agenda. However, the results identified nine sustainability functions of Industry 4.0 that, when leveraged appropriately and in the correct order, can offer important implications for realising the economic and socio-environmental goals of Industry 5.0. For example, under extreme unpredictability of business world uncertainties, the business should first leverage the automation and integration capabilities of Industry 4.0 to gain the necessary cost-saving, resource efficiency, risk management capability, and business antifragility that allow them to introduce sustainable innovation into their business model without jeopardising their survival. Various scenarios for empowering Industry 5.0 sustainability values identified in the present study offer important implications for knowledge and practice.