Industry 4.0: Towards future industrial opportunities and challenges

Industry 4.0 (the fourth industrial revolution) encapsulates future industry development trends to achieve more intelligent manufacturing processes, including reliance on Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), construction of Cyber-Physical Production Systems (CPPS), and implementation and operation of smart factories. This paper introduces relevant aspects of Industry 4.0 in relation to strategic planning, key technologies, opportunities, and challenges. Strategic planning includes construction of a CPS network, discussion of two major themes which are based on the smart factory and intelligent production, achieving three integrations (horizontal integration, vertical integration and end-to-end integration) and achieving eight plans which consist of the formulation of system standardization, efficient management etc. Finally, it referred to the enlightenment for China's manufacturing industries, to build China's Industry 4.0.