LITMUS: Enabling the Transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0

In the LITMUS project, researchers are exploring how companies can transition from today’s Industry 4.0 to the new Industry 5.0 by smartly utilizing their existing technologies. The goal is to combine efficient production with improved economic, social, and environmental sustainability.

Even as manufacturing companies in Sweden rapidly adopt the core technologies of Industry 4.0 to drive digitalization within their businesses, mounting concerns related to the environment, climate, and resources, along with drastic events such as pandemics, wars, and economic crises, necessitate a more holistic approach to industrial digitalization.

This shift towards a comprehensive strategy, referred to as Industry 5.0, emphasizes a human-centric and sustainable development focus, integrating advanced digital technologies with a strong commitment to enhancing human well-being, social equity, and responsible consumption in the manufacturing sector.

A new era of industrial revolution

This new era of industrial revolution is not about introducing new technologies, but rather about leveraging existing ones to advance towards human-centric sustainable development.

The LITMUS Synergy project has been conceived to serve as a litmus test for how the transition from Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0 can be managed effectively. By focusing on specific aspects of environmental, economic, and social sustainability through three corresponding and synergistic sub-projects – namely, (i) resource efficiency, (ii) manufacturing productivity, and (iii) human centricity – the project becomes highly relevant for the manufacturing sector.

While each sub-project is designed to address challenges specific to these dimensions and contribute to scientific knowledge, the overarching Synergy project aims to address intersectional research questions and co-produce industrial solutions to drive business impact.

LITMUS will be coordinated from the School of Engineering Science at University of Skövde. While building upon the knowledge and experience from past and ongoing projects within the Virtual Engineering research environment, LITMUS also complements its current research and future ambitions by bringing new perspectives to support the digitalization and transition of the Swedish manufacturing industry towards Industry 5.0.

The project’s foundation in production and industrial engineering challenges and exploration of new frontiers of informatics research means that it is ideally positioned to contribute to the School’s education programs at all levels.