An Open Access Book on Industry 4.0 titled: "The Digital Shopfloor: Industrial Automation in the Industry 4.0 Era" has been recently published and is available for download at: https://lnkd.in/gYDe-G6 . The book reflects most recent R&I results from H2020 (European Commission funded) research and innovation projects; primarily from FAR-EDGE, AUTOWARE, DAEDALUS-initiatives, which have formed the Digital Shopfloor Alliance (DSA). It provides insights on a variety of digital automation open reference architectures, platforms and solutions, based on advanced ICT technologies like open cloud/edge computing, distributed ledger technologies and data-driven cognitive computing, which will play a key role in supporting software-defined modular automation and collaborative robotic solutions in the factories of the future. Moreover, solutions based on the promising IEC 61499 standards are also addressed.

Overall, the presented results are fully aligned with some of the research priorities that EFFRA has been setting and detailing during the last couple of years and which will remain the focus of key large scale piloting activities over the next 5 years.  In particular, the work reflected in the book is perfectly aligned to the initial stages of the ConnectedFactories “Autonomous Smart Factories” pathway, as the presented technologies and use cases are boosting significant improvements in production time, quality, sustainability and cost-efficiency at the same time.

The book has been co-edited by John Soldatos, Oscar Lazaro and Franco Cavadini. Moreover, a foreword has been authored by the Technical Director of EFFRA Chris Decubber.