Professor Xun Xu is a Chair of Manufacturing at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Auckland. He joined the Department after completing a PhD from the University of Manchester (then UMIST), UK in 1996. He has been working in the field of intelligent manufacturing solutions for some 30 years. Dr. Xu is an internationally recognized expert in smart machining systems, cloud-based manufacturing and IoT enabled manufacturing. He serves as an Associate Editor and a member of Editorial Boards of a number of international journals and has published over 300 research papers. Dr. Xu is the founding Director of the University of Auckland “Innovative Manufacturing and Materials” Program, which draws expertise and experts from the Faculties of Engineering, Business and Science of the University. He has also served as the Associate Dean Research of the Faculty of Engineering, and Deputy Head of Department. He is the Director of Laboratory for Industry 4.0 Smart Manufacturing Systems (LISMS), the only Laboratory for Industry 4.0 in New Zealand. His current research focus is around the Industry 4.0 technologies, e.g. cloud manufacturing, smart factories, Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR) for manufacturing, big industrial data and data analytics, additive manufacturing and human-machine interactions. Dr. Xu is the Fellow of American Society for Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the Fellow of Engineering New Zealand (EngNZ).

Industry 4.0 is the German vision for the future of manufacturing, one that smart factories use information and communications technologies to digitise their systems and processes, and reap benefits in the form of improved quality, lower costs, and increased efficiency. The technological fundamentals of Industry 4.0 are unpinned by that of Internet of Things and exist in various forms of Cyber-Physical Systems, where “systems” can be products and machines. A key element in a Cyber-physical System is Cyber Twin or otherwise commonly known as Digital Twin. There are some subtle technological differences between the two terminologies. Nevertheless, they share some common features that enable a Cyber-physical System to function effectively in the Industry 4.0 surroundings. This talk gives an overview of the background, concept and major technologies, in particular digital twin and twinning technologies, for Industry 4.0.