We outline the smart manufacturing challenges for formulated products, which are typically multicomponent, structured, and multiphase. These challenges predominate in the food, pharmaceuticals, agricultural and specialty chemicals, energy storage and energetic materials, and consumer goods industries, and are driven by fast-changing customer demand and, in some cases, a tight regulatory framework. This paper discusses progress in smart manufacturing—namely, digitalization and the use of large datasets with predictive models and solution-finding algorithms—in these industries. While some progress has been achieved, there is a strong need for more demonstration of model-based tools on realistic problems in order to demonstrate their benefits and highlight any systemic weaknesses.

State-of-the-art technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing (CC), big data analytics (BDA), and artificial intelligence (AI) have greatly stimulated the development of smart manufacturing. An important prerequisite for smart manufacturing is cyber–physical integration, which is increasingly being embraced by manufacturers. As the preferred means of such integration, cyber–physical systems (CPS) and digital twins (DTs) have gained extensive attention from researchers and practitioners in industry. With feedback loops in which physical processes affect cyber parts and vice versa, CPS and DTs can endow manufacturing systems with greater efficiency, resilience, and intelligence. CPS and DTs share the same essential concepts of an intensive cyber–physical connection, real-time interaction, organization integration, and in-depth collaboration. However, CPS and DTs are not identical from many perspectives, including their origin, development, engineering practices, cyber–physical mapping, and core elements. In order to highlight the differences and correlation between them, this paper reviews and analyzes CPS and DTs from multiple perspectives.

An intelligent manufacturing system is a composite intelligent system comprising humans, cyber systems, and physical systems with the aim of achieving specific manufacturing goals at an optimized level. This kind of intelligent system is called a human–cyber–physical system (HCPS). In terms of technology, HCPSs can both reveal technological principles and form the technological architecture for intelligent manufacturing. It can be concluded that the essence of intelligent manufacturing is to design, construct, and apply HCPSs in various cases and at different levels. With advances in information technology, intelligent manufacturing has passed through the stages of digital manufacturing and digital-networked manufacturing, and is evolving toward new-generation intelligent manufacturing (NGIM). NGIM is characterized by the in-depth integration of new-generation artificial intelligence (AI) technology (i.e., enabling technology) with advanced manufacturing technology (i.e., root technology); it is the core driving force of the new industrial revolution. In this study, the evolutionary footprint of intelligent manufacturing is reviewed from the perspective of HCPSs, and the implications, characteristics, technical frame, and key technologies of HCPSs for NGIM are then discussed in depth. Finally, an outlook of the major challenges of HCPSs for NGIM is proposed.

With the development of modern information technology—and particularly of the new generation of artificial intelligence (AI) technology—new opportunities are available for the development of the intelligent machine tool (IMT). Based on the three classical paradigms of intelligent manufacturing as defined by the Chinese Academy of Engineering, the concept, characteristics, and systemic structure of the IMT are presented in this paper. Three stages of machine tool evolution—from the manually operated machine tool (MOMT) to the IMT—are discussed, including the numerical control machine tool (NCMT), the smart machine tool (SMT), and the IMT. Furthermore, the four intelligent control principles of the IMT—namely, autonomous sensing and connection, autonomous learning and modeling, autonomous optimization and decision-making, and autonomous control and execution—are presented in detail. This paper then points out that the essential characteristic of the IMT is to acquire and accumulate knowledge through learning, and presents original key enabling technologies, including the instruction-domain-based analytical approach, theoretical and big-data-based hybrid modeling technology, and the double-code control method. Based on this research, an intelligent numerical control (INC) system and industrial prototypes of IMTs are developed. Three intelligent practices are conducted, demonstrating that the integration of the new generation of AI technology with advanced manufacturing technology is a feasible and convenient way to advance machine tools toward the IMT.