Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is a collective term for several trends within manufacturing and industry. Industry 4.0 encompasses, among others, the following concepts:

• Smart manufacturing/smart factories
• Dark factories (factories without humans and thus with no need for lights)
• Industrial internet of things

Even though the concept mainly focuses on manufacturing, some aspects are still highly relevant for freight transport. A smart factory inevitably needs to be serviced by vehicles delivering or picking up cargo, thereby needing interaction with systems that (normally) are out of the control of the factory itself.