## 4 Industry-Related Challenges and Opportunities  
In order for the application domains analysed in Section 3 to work properly, there are crucial requirements that characterise Industry 4.0 that need to be satisfied. As identified by the IEEE Time Sensitive Networks (TSN) Working Group (WG), the main challenges that need to be faced before the Industry 4.0 vision becomes a reality are [7; 44; 45]:  
* **reduce latencies and ensure accuracy independently from the physical medium:** the majority of industrial applications require real-time and deterministic responsiveness. This is already ensured by typical communication standards used in industrial scenarios (e.g., PROFINET, HART), but with the introduction of wireless communication standards and devices with heterogeneous characteristics, this performance might degrade. Indeed, existing communication standards that are not conceived for industrial applications need to be adapted in order to take these requirements into account, particularly introducing mechanisms for prioritization, time slot allocation and synchronization. Furthermore, the use of different communication standards needs to be performed seamlessly. These requirements need to be fulfilled even considering an increase in demand;
* **perform fault tolerance without additional hardware:** reliability of data flows needs to be ensured even in the event of faults and failures, without installing additional hardware that would nullify the benefit of using the existing hardware to perform the applications. To this aim, the IEEE TSN WG (Time-Sensitive Networking Working Group) is defining mechanisms that allow replication and redundant transmission of data over several disjunctive paths;
* **support higher security, safety and privacy:** with the introduction of heterogeneous communication media and protocols that are not conceived to work in an industrial environment, particularly wireless, it is necessary to study new mechanisms that ensure safety and security. It should be ensured that the production facilities and product itself do not threaten people and the environment. Product misuse and unauthorized access to production facilities need to be prevented. Furthermore, the acquisition of personal data about customers and workers introduces privacy issues that need to be taken into account when designing and implementing an Industry 4.0 application [46];
* **provide interoperability of solutions from different manufacturers:** existing industrial hardware mainly uses proprietary solutions to work and communicate with other devices. Indeed, one of the major known issues related to the use of heterogeneous devices is interoperability between newly installed devices and existing devices, particularly when existing devices are extremely efficient, reliable and expensive, and their replacement would be difficult. Therefore, a set of uniform standards needs to be developed so that a network between different factories and companies can be connected and integrated. When all these challenges will be satisfactorily met, the following objectives are envisioned to represent the opportunities that will foster the spread of Industry 4.0 applications [7; 13; 47]:  
* the improvement of industrial process management will lead to an **improvement in the whole production**, mainly given by the reduction in production time. The increased level of integration and data exchange will lead to an increase in the complexity of business processes and in the level of automation ensured. Flexibility will be improved, as processes will be made more agile. Dynamic and adaptive optimized decision-taking will improve productivity and efficiency: the lowest amount of resources will be used to produce the highest volume of products, while minimizing emissions due to production processes;
* **improved working conditions** will be ensured, both taking into account an improvement in security and safety, and in working time, work organisation, and work-life balance.