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Opinion
Data visualization for Industry 4.0:
A stepping-stone toward a digital future,
bridging the gap between academia and industry
Louis Allen,1 Jack Atkinson,1 Dinusha Jayasundara,1 Joan Cordiner,1 and Peyman Z. Moghadam1,*
1Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK

*Correspondence: [email protected]
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.patter.2021.100266

Here, we analyze the potential of advanced data-visualization dashboards as an enabling technology for In-
dustry 4.0. High-dimensional, real-time visualization allows the graphical expression of complex process var-
iables at a fraction of the cost of full-scale digitalization. It is therefore a more achievable goal for smaller firms
looking to transition to digital manufacturing and poses a realistic stepping-stone approach for Industry 4.0.

Industry is undergoing a fourth industrial effectively, the knowledge communi- of UK firms, which were mostly SMEs,
revolution, coined Industry 4.0 (I4.0), cated through them can have far-reach- found that big data analytics and machine
seeing the implementation of cutting- ing business impact. learning ranked as high-benefit but also
edge technologies such as cloud ‘‘We are currently preparing students high-complexity tools to implement for
manufacturing (CM), Internet of Things for jobs that don’t yet exist, using tech- operations.4 Commercial software like
(IoT), cyber-physical systems (CPS), and nologies that haven’t been invented, in Tableau (https://www.tableau.com) offer
big data analytics (BDA). There is a signif- order to solve problems, we don’t even accessible platforms for analytics and
icant pressure on industry to adopt and know are problems yet.’’ This quote by visualization with minimal programming
integrate these technologies to push former Education Secretary Richard knowledge required for use but aren’t
manufacturing toward ‘‘smart factories’’ Riley was featured on the foreword of a specific to the manufacturing industry,
that can make intelligent decisions and 2019 report by the Universities of the which could benefit highly by tools like
control their own manufacturing pro- Future2 that attempts to identify the skills predictive maintenance and control, as
cesses. These changes have led to data- required for adapting to I4.0. This senti- reflected in the survey.
oriented operations that require thought- ment is felt beyond education, and The move toward digital manufacturing
ful implementation of visualization tech- adapting the incoming and especially remains an abstract concept to firms that
niques and software to realize the full the existing workforce to be digitally simply cannot muster the capital to make
value of data; classical visualization stra- literate and relevant for I4.0 remains a the jump. Firms in this scenario are left in a
tegies do not work well to preserve the challenge. Something that is exacer- state of limbo, unable to move forward
benefits of data visualization within the bating this challenge is the aging of the themselves, while competitors benefit
changing status quo driven by I4.0. workforce in manufacturing, especially from the advantages of increased digitali-
The challenges in implementing I4.0 in OECD (Organization for Economic zation. Therefore, these firms are at a
are multifaceted and include obvious Co-operation and Development) coun- disadvantage when compared to their
technical and economic challenges as tries.3 Retraining this demographic in much larger corporation rivals. The ques-
well as cultural and social issues. It is data analytics and data science is a chal- tion becomes, what can these firms do to
critical that the benefits of effective lenge, but their existing skills and knowl- close the gap? The answer for many lies in
data visualization such as improved de- edge of current manufacturing pro- the realm of data visualization and ana-
cision making, improved ad hoc analysis, cesses are invaluable. These skills can lytics software.
and improved collaboration1 can be pre- be utilized by providing easy-to-use visu- The importance of data visualization as
served in industry’s transformation. alization software that lowers the barrier a tool for I4.0 is widespread, and well
Providing insight into data is a key pur- for analyzing and understanding large documented, but unfortunately, many
pose of visualization; it is fundamental datasets and recruits the experience of manufacturing industries have been
for summarizing large datasets quickly this workforce to potentially provide rather slow in engaging with such
and intuitively and therefore takes an valuable insight in troubleshooting or tools—perhaps because of lack of skills
important place in manufacturing, where optimizing manufacturing processes. and knowledge. Manufacturing involves
decisions are becoming more data Manufacturing processes will continue complex multivariate systems, which pro-
driven and the amount of data generated to produce data, but a lot of businesses, duce high volumes of high-velocity data,
is accelerating exponentially. Moreover, particularly small and mid-size enterprises and therefore, the computational require-
visual analysis can be used at all levels (SMEs), lack the resources and expertise ment to compile, analyze, and gain insight
of an organization, from technical staff to implement solutions that can take into this data is significant; for many, the
to management, and so when used advantage of these data. A 2020 survey ability to return real-time process insight

Patterns 2, May 14, 2021 ª 2021 1

This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
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OPEN ACCESS Opinion

Figure 1. Wiz dashboard developed in Siemens’ MindSphere

(A) Four-dimensional visualization principal-component analysis. (B) Supporting scree plot and (C) real-time data feed from a tablet manufacturing line at the
Diamond Pilot Plant at the University of Sheffield.

is a daunting task. Clearly, the develop- gineering experts, and manufacturing cipal-component analysis (PCA), clus-
ment of one-stop-shop solutions to pro- operating staff, promoting a greater level tering, or regression. Advanced dash-
vide a birds-eye view over massive data- of communication. board front-end applications show
sets provides invaluable process insight IoT, a key technology in I4.0, provides a promise in the handling of big data and
in a much more efficient manner. In a new platform for visualization. Significant are applicable as a stepping-stone for
world where machines talk to each other, effort has been made to describe IoT moving from traditional manufacturing
and day-to-day human tasks are being and its variations including Internet of approaches toward I4.0. Additionally,
automated, graphical interpretation re- Manufacturing Things (IoMT) and Seman- they stand as a smart investment for
mains a field that emphasizes the need tic Web of Things for Industry (SWeTI) ar- many smaller firms that want to gain
for creative input and lateral thinking and chitectures as a series of layers.5,6 The higher levels of process insight but cannot
promotes innovative problem solving. top application/interface layers of these afford the high price point that comes with
This outside-the-box problem solving frameworks present new opportunities full-scale digitalization. In order to take
will ultimately define the role of the human for visualizations that are well connected full advantage of this emerging data visu-
operator as control of more and more of to multiple live data sources, providing alization paradigm, there needs to be
our routine tasks are handed over to good support for emerging trends such further research into how it can be applied
smart-manufacturing counterparts. Em- as dashboards. Dashboards are experi- in different domains, situations, and
ploying people’s natural visual capacity encing increasing use in industry due to functions.
is fundamentally intuitive and does not their monitoring and decision-support ca- A step change in the way industry col-
require high levels of training or expertise pabilities and can be combined with live laborates with academia must be realized
in data handling. Therefore, data visuali- data analytics to increase their power. to help manufacturing industries adopt
zation can be thought of as non-discrimi- Compared to the established human-ma- and benefit from I4.0 and the tools
natory—it allows the same level of insight chine interface (HMI) counterparts used that it provides. On the one hand,
regardless of academic fortitude or extensively for monitoring and controlling manufacturing industries are feeling the
computational knowledge. This encour- processes, these dashboards can pro- exacerbating pressure of how quickly
ages information transparency within or- vide a more customizable interface that I4.0 technologies are transforming the
ganizations, reducing the appearance of also acts as a platform allowing access field and are falling behind to engage
barriers between upper management, en- to deeper data analytics such as prin- with state-of-the-art data visualization

2 Patterns 2, May 14, 2021

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Opinion OPEN ACCESS

solutions. On the other hand, research is sights from data created by digital twins WEB RESOURCES
often slow at materializing into tangible and other data-driven models.
Tableau, https://www.tableau.com
tools or strategies in industry, and this is It is clear that common and well-estab- Wiz, https://wiz.shef.ac.uk/
rooted in a lack of communication be- lished commercial-grade dashboard appli-
tween the two sectors. Agile and collabo- cations lack an industry focus and cannot
rative response will ensure the best inte- offer the range of visualizations to properly
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About the authors
will be displayed on an enterprise-quality guide industry into its fourth revolution. Dr. Peyman Z. Moghadam is a lecturer at the
dashboard allowing users to customize Chemical and Biological Department at the Uni-
what key performance indicators are dis- versity of Sheffield, and his group is leading the
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS field of high-throughput simulations and quanti-
played and where they are displayed
tative big data methods for accelerated discov-
(Figure 1). The dashboard will allow the ery of functional materials. Prior to joining Shef-
P.Z.M. thanks the Corporate Information and
user to apply and execute various analyt- Computing Services (CiCS) and Partnerships and
field, he was the head of the computational
ical techniques including statistical group at the Adsorption and Advanced Materials
Regional Engagement at the University of Sheffield
Lab at the University of Cambridge for 3 years.
methods, dimensionality reduction, and for providing partial funds for the development of
From 2013 to 2015, he did a postdoc at North-
noise reduction in the data. By combining Wiz. P.Z.M. also thanks John Dale and Carl
western University after completing his PhD in
McGrath from the University of Sheffield and Ste-
the dashboard with IoT for condition and chemical engineering at the University of Edin-
fan Balan and David Moss from Siemens for useful
burgh. He has published 42 papers (h-index:
process monitoring, machine learning al- discussions.
27). In 2019, P.Z.M.’s big data visualization soft-
gorithms can be added to the platform ware, Wiz, won 1st prize at the University of
to make use of cutting-edge I4.0 tech- Sheffield software competition and was subse-
DECLARATION OF INTERESTS quently published on the front cover of Patterns.
niques such as predictive maintenance
His group leads the development of data visual-
and quality control. Lastly, this platform P.Z.M. has financial interest through Mono- ization/analytics dashboards for Industry 4.0
will be used for capturing and creating in- clinic Ltd. applications.

Patterns 2, May 14, 2021 3