Industry 5.0: Prospect and retrospect

Industry 5.0 blows the whistle on global industrial transformation. It aims to place humans’ well-being at the center of manufacturing systems, thereby achieving social goals beyond employment and growth to provide prosperity robustly for the sustainable development of all humanity. However, the current exploration of Industry 5.0 is still in its infancy where research findings are relatively scarce and little systematic. This paper first reviews the evolutionary vein of Industry 5.0 and three leading characteristics of Industry 5.0: human-centricity, sustainability, and resiliency. The connotation system of Industry 5.0 is discussed, and its diversified essence is analyzed. Then, this paper constructs a tri-dimension system architecture for implementing Industry 5.0, namely, the technical dimension, reality dimension, and application dimension. The paper further discusses key enablers, the future implementation path, potential applications, and challenges of realistic scenarios of Industry 5.0. Finally, the limitations of the current research are discussed with potential future research directions highlighted. It is expected that this review work will arouse lively discussions and debates, and bring together the strengths of all beings for building a comprehensive system of Industry 5.0.