The Future of Process Industry: A Cyber-Physical-Social System Perspective

The process industry is an industrial field of interdisciplinary nature involving electrical engineering, energy, petroleum, chemical, and metallurgy, which play a key role in the sustainable development. As a main source of CO2 emissions, the process industry will undertake a large part of the emission reduction task. In order to incorporate the impact of social factors, such as environment, society, and human to support the future process industry, the cyber-physical-social system (CPSS) framework should be considered as a promising way to enhance the transformation of the process industry. The development of CPSS technologies will fundamentally change the infrastructure of conventional industrial systems, offering a great opportunity for the greenization, high-value, and digitalization in the process industry. This article first presents the current status of the process industry. Through a CPSS framework, the current developments of the process industry as well as the main challenges and opportunities are discussed. A vision for the future process industry based on CPSS is described by focusing on three aspects, namely, the greenization and low carbon, high-value and high-end, digitalization, and intellectualization in process manufacturing. Finally, the advanced technologies and approaches in CPSS driven by artificial intelligence and industrial digitalization, which are important in achieving the sustainable development of the process industry, are outlined. The development of the comprehensive digital technologies, such as virtual reality, digital twin, blockchain, and big data, will stimulate the implementation of a ground-breaking concept formed in the CPSS framework called industrial metaverse.