A Review of Data-Driven Decision-Making Methods for Industry 4.0 Maintenance Applications

Decision-making for manufacturing and maintenance operations is benefiting from the advanced sensor infrastructure of Industry 4.0, enabling the use of algorithms that analyze data, predict emerging situations, and recommend mitigating actions. The current paper reviews the literature on data-driven decision-making in maintenance and outlines directions for future research towards data-driven decision-making for Industry 4.0 maintenance applications. The main research directions include the coupling of decision-making with augmented reality for seamless interfacing that combines the real and virtual worlds of manufacturing operators; methods and techniques for addressing uncertainty of data, in lieu of emerging Internet of Things (IoT) devices; integration of maintenance decision-making with other operations such as scheduling and planning; utilization of the cloud continuum for optimal deployment of decision-making services; capability of decision-making methods to cope with big data; incorporation of advanced security mechanisms; and coupling decision-making with simulation software, autonomous robots, and other additive manufacturing initiatives.