Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099

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Computers & Industrial Engineering

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Understanding Big Data Analytics for Manufacturing Processes: Insights T

from Literature Review and Multiple Case Studies
Amine Belhadia, , Karim Zkikb, Anass Cherrafic, Sha'ri M. Yusofd, Said El fezazia
⁎

a
Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakech, Morocco
b
TICLab, International University of Rabat, Sale, Morocco
c
ENSAM-Meknes, Moulay Ismail University, Meknes, Morocco
d
University of Technology of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Today, we are undoubtedly in the era of data. Big Data Analytics (BDA) is no longer a perspective for all level of
Big Data Analytics the organization. This is of special interest in the manufacturing process with their high capital intensity, time
Manufacturing process constraints and given the huge amount of data already captured. However, there is a paucity in past literature on
Big Data Analytics capabilities BDA to develop better understanding of the capabilities and strategic implications to extract value from BDA. In
Business intelligence
that vein, the central aim of this paper is to develop a novel model that summarizes the main capabilities of BDA
Literature review
Multiple case study
in the context of manufacturing process. This is carried out by relying on the findings of a review of the ongoing
research along with a multiple case studies within a leading phosphate derivatives manufacturer to point out the
capabilities of BDA in manufacturing processes and outline recommendations to advance research in the field.
The findings will help companies to understand the big data analytics capabilities and its potential implications
for their manufacturing processes and support them seeking to design more effective BDA-enabler infrastructure.

1. Introduction
The widespread emergence of digital technologies and advancing
computing power and expansion of the industrial Internet of Things
(IoT) have led to a new generation of networked, information-based
technologies, data analytics, and predictive modeling (He & Wang,
2018). This new generation is providing unparalleled integrated com-
puting capabilities to supply manufacturers with better wherewithal to
extract value from an increasingly huge amount of data and gain a
powerful competitive advantage (Chiang, Lu, & Castillo, 2017; He &
Wang, 2018).
According to the research report published in the earlier 2011 by
McKinsey Global Institute under the heading “Big Data: The next frontier
for innovation, competition, and productivity”, big data has permeated
every part of life, and becomes a paramount pioneer for production in
the near future (Manyika et al., 2011). According to Manyika et al.
(2011), Big Data involves datasets whose size exceeds the ability of
typical database software tools to capture, store, manage, and analyze.
Mainly, Big Data is characterized by the ability to handle data with four
qualities: Volume (the size/scale of the data), Variety (the form/format
of the data), Velocity (the rate of the data being produced), and Vera-
city (the uncertainty/reliability of the data). Big Data is often associated
with the concept of Analytics which refers to the ability to acquire in-
formation from data by applying statistics, mathematics, econometrics,
simulations, optimizations, or other techniques to support decision
making processes (Arunachalam, Kumar, & Kawalek, 2018; Wang,
Gunasekaran, Ngai, & Papadopoulos, 2016).
Particularly for manufacturing processes, the challenge of Big Data
Analytics (BDA) is even greater. Actually, the excessive use of process
operation, control computers and information systems makes the ex-
isting manufacturing process operation databases huge and massive.
Moreover, with the ever-increasing advancement of IoT devices from
conventional process sensors to images, videos and indirect measure-
ment technologies, it is expected that the data extracted from future
smart manufacturing processes will expand drastically (Qin, 2014).
Therefore, it seems to be a consensus that only manufacturers able to
analyze their manufacturing processes based on this accelerating huge
mass of data will survive in the next stage of the transformation of
advanced manufacturing within the age of data as a decisive competi-
tive asset. Such manufacturers predict the best proceeding process flow,
and proactively control their processes with this knowledge (Krumeich,
Jacobi, Werth, & Loos, 2014).
Owing to the aforementioned considerations, Big Data Analytics in
manufacturing processes has received increasing attention because of

⁎
Corresponding author at: Route Dar Si-Aïssa BP. 89 Avenue Echahid Mbarek El Mokhtar, Safi, Morocco.
E-mail addresses: belhadi-9@hotmail.fr, Belhadi.amine@outlook.com (A. Belhadi).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cie.2019.106099
Received 28 October 2018; Received in revised form 3 July 2019; Accepted 27 September 2019
Available online 28 September 2019
0360-8352/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A. Belhadi, et al.
its considerable impact on manufacturing processes. First, the wide use
of distributed control systems and the development of some typical
information and communication technologies (ICTs) have considerably
evolved the mode of production. Today’s manufacturing processes are
increasingly operating in an uncertain and complex environment with
tricky operations and overcomplicated constraints (Cheng, Chen, Sun,
Zhang, & Tao, 2018). Therefore, it becomes more and more difficult to
build first-principle models in those complex processes and plenty of
processes and practices satisfying the traditional mode of production
management are no longer appropriate (Cheng et al., 2018; Ge, Song,
Ding, & Huang, 2017). Second, the immense need of production man-
agers for the real-time, dynamic, self-adaptive and accurate production
management has brought new challenges to the traditional methods. It
becomes highly required to create manufacturing intelligence from
real-time data to provide precise prediction of product quality, pro-
duction and processing time. This is done by new effective techniques,
within shorter computation time to control the continuous real-time
production systems and to identify faults, defects and some other ab-
normal situations alongside supporting accurate and timely decision-
making (Cheng et al., 2018; He & Wang, 2018).
Notwithstanding the enthusiasm and growth of interest in Big Data
Analytics, little is known about their key capabilities for manufacturing
processes. Indeed, organizations willing to adopt Big Data in their
manufacturing processes are fighting to better understand its concept
and then gain the business value from BDA (Wamba, Akter, Edwards,
Chopin, & Gnanzou, 2015). Moreover, quite few scholars highlight that
BDA is still in its early stage and there are yet undiscovered directions
to explore on BDA in manufacturing processes. To bridge the existing
knowledge gap in the literature, the present paper aims at relying on
previous studies on BDA in manufacturing processes along with an in-
depth multiple case studies within an international company using Big
Data Analytics to improve its manufacturing process to achieve the
following research objectives:
1. Clear up the concept of BDA in the context of manufacturing pro-
cesses,
2. Review, classify and summarize all relevant articles dealing with
BDA in manufacturing processes drawing on a conceptual frame-
work for classifying the literature,
3. Point out future research trends to enhance the capabilities of BDA
in the manufacturing process,
4. Analyze in-depth the findings of a multiple case studies within a
leading company to provide recommendations to advance BDA
implementation in manufacturing processes.
The remainder of this paper is arranged as follows. Section 2 pro-
vides an integrative definition of the concept of Big Data Analytics. The
research scope along with the methodology pursued to conduct the
study are then introduced in Section 3, followed by Section 4 and
Section 5, which present and deeply discuss the findings and results of
the literature review and the multiple case studies. Section 6 points out
the implications for research and practice along with the contributions
of the study. Finally, the paper is concluded by the summary, limita-
tions and suggestions for future research agenda in Section 7.
2. The concept and definitions of Big Data and Analytics
Big Data Analytics is undoubtedly a major thoroughfare in the next
round of information technology transformation in industry (Qin, 2014;
Wamba et al., 2015). Obviously, BDA involves two main concepts: Big
Data and Data Analytics. Literature has widely discussed the benefits
and outcomes of BDA in the growth and profitability of today’s com-
panies (Gunasekaran, Yusuf, Adeleye, & Papadopoulos, 2018; Krumeich
et al., 2014; Qin, 2014). However, the fast-paced evolution of the
concept of BDA has raised some confusion regarding its definition
(Wamba et al., 2015). Actually, there is no consensus on a clear and
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Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
integrative definition of this compound concept.
2.1. Defining Big Data
When attempting to define Big Data, size is the immediate attribute
that intuitively comes to mind (Gandomi & Haider, 2015). However,
there are other important attributes of Big Data, namely data variety
and data velocity. The three V’s (Volume, Variety and Velocity) con-
stituted, erstwhile, the most commonly used framework to define Big
Data (Chen, Chiang, & Storey, 2012). Quite few definitions of ‘Big data’
are summarized in Wamba et al. (2015). Moreover, Beyer and Laney
(2012, p. 2) propose a largely convergent definition of BD from Gartner
using the three V’s as:
‘‘high-volume, -velocity and -variety information assets that demand
cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced
insight and decision making”
Over the time, some other attributes have been included to the basic
framework such as Veracity, Variability, Volatility and Value (Tewari &
Dwivedi, 2019). The Seven V’s can be defined as:
• Volume: refers to the ever-growing magnitude and size of data
generated. Big data sizes easily reach multiple terabytes even pe-
tabytes.
• Variety: represents the heterogeneity, diversity and unevenness of
data types in a dataset. Advanced ICTs in today’s companies gen-
erate various types of structured, semi-structured, and unstructured
data of various types such as text, sensor data, audio, video, log files
and so on.
• Velocity: is the frequency of data generation and the high-speed at
which it should be processed, analyzed and acted upon.
• Veracity: introduced by IBM as a defining attribute of big data.
Veracity refers the degree of truthfulness and uncertainty related to
most sources of data. Big Data proposes the use of specific tools and
analytics to deal with imprecise and unreliable data.
• Variability: pioneered by SAS as an additional attribute of big data.
The Variability and complexity in the process of data generation
implies a high need to connect, match, cleanse and transform data
received from different sources.
• Volatility: refers to the capacity of storage and retention of data.
With the huge volume and velocity of data, the issue of storage
retention along with security of data becomes significant for big
data.
• Value: coined by Oracle as the seventh V. The Value of data gen-
erated is insignificant in its raw form compared to its huge volume.
This value can be significantly increased by processing and ana-
lyzing large volumes of such data.
In addition, a range of ‘big data’ definitions focusing on different
aspects of the concept exists in the literature. While some definitions
consider the ability perspective (e.g. Qin, 2014), Authors like
Arunachalam et al. (2018) and Wamba et al. (2015) proposed more
holistic definitions that encompass the technologies of process, man-
agement and analysis of data. In sum, a benchmark of a universal de-
finition of BD do not yet exists. From the perspective of process man-
ufacturing, organizations need to think about ‘big data’ as a mean to
decode complex manufacturing systems by expanding advanced skills
and competencies that wield advanced IT tools to gather, store, orga-
nize, extract data from different ICTs in order to analyze them and
generate useful information that support the decision making process to
value creation and optimization.
2.2. Insights on Data Analytics
Big data is not an end in itself. Its potential value cannot be high-
lighted unless when employed as a supportive tool of decision-making
A. Belhadi, et al.
Fig. 1. Classification of BD Analytic problems and techniques.
processes (Gandomi & Haider, 2015). To deal with this issue, quite few
techniques and processes of data mining and statistical analysis under
the heading “Data Analytics” have been designed by scholars and
practitioners from the artificial intelligence, algorithm, and database
communities in order to extract from high volumes of scalable and
various data actionable grasp (Chen et al., 2012). When tackling a big
data project, a plethora of analytical techniques exists. According to
(Sivarajah, Kamal, Irani, & Weerakkody, 2017), BDA can enhance the
decision-making and increase organizational output by extracting sense
from the data for different types of analytic problems namely, de-
scriptive analytics, predictive analytics and prescriptive analytics as
presented in Fig. 1.
Descriptive analytics: provide hindsight on the current state of a
business situation using business intelligence tools through the gen-
eration of regular reports, ad hoc reports, and alerts (Joseph & Johnson,
2013; Sivarajah et al., 2017). Descriptive analytics are regarded back-
ward looking and disclose ‘what happened’ or alert on what is going to
happen through a subset of techniques. Banerjee, Bandyopadhyay, and
Acharya (2013) highlight, in addition to usual reporting and score-
boards, dashboard as a form of application when an organization sys-
tematically produces numerous indicators or metrics based on data to
monitor a process over the time. Further tools such as Advanced Data
Visualization (ADV), data mining and advanced statistical analysis are
pointed out to leverage the descriptive analysis of processes. Other
techniques emphasized to support descriptive analytics such as text,
video and other multimedia analytics (Gandomi & Haider, 2015). These
tools are necessary to feel the need of extracting facts from texts, un-
structured audios and video streams, connecting them with the relevant
decision-making process and finally nurturing a data-driven decision
process.
Inquisitive analytics: vet ‘why something happened’. Inquisitive
analysis is generally nurtured by descriptive analysis output or addi-
tional data if needed to be gathered using descriptive analytics tech-
niques in order to disclose the root causes of a problem (Banerjee et al.,
2013). Generally speaking, inquisitive analytics techniques seek to re-
veal the potential or recessive rules, characteristics and relationships
(such as dependency, similarity, correlations, etc.) that exist in the data,
such as generalization, association, sequence pattern mining, and
clustering analytics, etc. (Cheng et al., 2018). Other techniques exist
such as Modeling Statistics, Query Tools, Spreadsheets, OLAP Tools,
Decision Trees (Chen et al., 2012).
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Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
Predictive analytics: aim to provide glimpse and foresights into
the future. Based on historical and current data, predictive analytics
apply forecasting and statistical modelling to give insight into “what is
likely to happen” in the future based on supervised, unsupervised, and
semi-supervised learning models (Gandomi & Haider, 2015; Sivarajah
et al., 2017). Cheng et al. (2018) talk about two categories of predictive
analytics techniques. The first category is statistical analytics oriented
techniques, which use mathematical models to induce and analyze
existing data as well as infer and predict unknown information. These
techniques include multinomial logit models (Sivarajah et al., 2017),
regression techniques (Gandomi & Haider, 2015), K-nearest neighbor
(KNN), Bayesian (Cheng et al., 2018). The second category is knowl-
edge discovery KD-oriented techniques, which is data-driven that does
not require to indicate assumptions and problems in advance. This
category mainly includes machine learning techniques such as Neural
Networks (NN), Multiple Backpropagation (MBP), Self-Organizing Map
(SOM) (Sivarajah et al., 2017), rough set, genetic algorithm (GA), as-
sociation rule, support vector machine (SVM), generalized sequential
pattern (GSP), etc. (Cheng et al., 2018).
Prescriptive analytics: optimize the process models based on the
output information of predictive analytic models (Sivarajah et al.,
2017). Furthermore, prescriptive analytics is concerned with the defi-
nition of the set of decisions that should be done through the inter-
pretation of cause-effect relationship among analytic results and busi-
ness process policies (Banerjee et al., 2013). In spite of its difficulty,
some authors cited a set of techniques like Discrete Choice Modeling,
Linear and Non-linear Programming and Value Analysis (Banerjee
et al., 2013; Sivarajah et al., 2017). Moreover, “what if” simulators
provide insights about what may be the likely options that the business
should implement in order to optimize its process (Banerjee et al.,
2013).
2.3. Towards an integrative definition of Big Data Analytics
“Big data Analytics” is the buzzword of the day. Actually, BDA is a
new trend in operations management, which brings together a set of
techniques for handling huge volumes of data so as to identify trends,
detect patterns and draw on precious insights. In the view of process
manufacturing management, Fig. 2 depicts our point of view of BDA
essence in the manufacturing process context.
According to our point of view, the manufacturing process generates
A. Belhadi, et al.
Fig. 2. Essence of Big Data Analytics in the context of Manufacturing Process.
data by mean of the emergence of advanced ICTs such as sensors, RFID,
etc. This data is of high-volume, large variety, high velocity, un-
ascertained veracity, wide variability, intense volatility and low value.
By using the high real-time processing ability of the theories and
methods of big data, data undergoes several valuation steps, i.e.
“Acquisition and Recording”, “Cleaning and Annotation” and
“Aggregation and Representation” to provide reliable and complete raw
data support on further data analysis. Afterwards, valuable information
and knowledge on four levels: descriptive, inquisitive, predictive and
prescriptive can be discovered from the big data using advanced ana-
lytics techniques in order to redirect the piloting of the manufacturing
process.
3. Research scope and methodological approaches
Papers addressing BDA in the context of manufacturing process
begin to make their appearance in the literature, (e.g. Ge et al., 2017;
Gunasekaran et al., 2018; He & Wang, 2018; Krumeich et al., 2014).
However, these papers did not discuss in-depth BDA capabilities for
manufacturing processes. In addition, studies and articles dealing with
BDA in manufacturing process related issues do not provide an overall
understanding of its capabilities from many facets and dimensions and
limit themselves to a single aspect. This suggests that BDA in the con-
text of manufacturing process is still evolving and there are yet studies
to explore in this area, hence, an intelligible understanding of the
subject, its facets and classification is yet to be fully surrounded.
The significant advancement of BDA not only uncovered a lack of
academic and theoretical research in the field but a distinct lack of
managerial insights and applications in the real-life context of manu-
facturing process. This paucity of literature creates a state of un-
certainty among organizations about the capabilities and potential
benefits that BDA could provide to their manufacturing processes.
Therefore, this paper seeks to address this shortage in the literature by
using a two-phase methodological research approach shown in Fig. 3.
The first phase is intended to conduct an extensive and comprehensive
literature review of journal articles to uncover the unexplored research
trends, while the second phase is dedicated to conduct a profound
analysis of a multiple case studies within a leading chemical company,
which is contemporarily implementing BDA for the optimization of its
manufacturing processes. The aim is to outline recommendations to fill
the gaps in the research trends identified.
3.1. Comprehensive review of literature on BDA in manufacturing process
With a view to gain insight and provide more comprehensible un-
derstanding on the capabilities of BDA on manufacturing process, a
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Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
structured review and classification of literature using bibliometric
network is conducted. This methodology is pursued owing to its ra-
tionality, transparency and reproducibility while gaining a meaningful
understanding through the analysis of extant literature and the com-
parison of influential work (Sivarajah et al., 2017). Moreover, Sivarajah
et al. (2017) argued that this methodology helps to stipulate current
evidence around a technology or a treatment, such as to summarize the
evidence of the benefits and drawbacks of an explicit map technique (in
this example, BDA in manufacturing process). To that end, this study
adopts the literature review methodology proposed by Rowley and
Slack (2004). Recent papers likewise followed similar methodology in
extracting insights from past BDA research papers (e.g. Arunachalam
et al., 2018; Sivarajah et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2016). This review
methodology encompasses, in addition to the step of material collec-
tion, three literature analysis steps: descriptive analysis, bibliometric
analysis and issues analysis.
3.1.1. Literature search and material collection
Rowley and Slack (2004) proposed several tools to assist in the
identification and location of documents. From these tools, we opt for
the search engines, which are believed to be efficient for locating web
pages with simple keyword based searches. In order to pick keywords
for this study and ensure that the topic of the study was fully covered,
“Big Data”, “Analytics” and “Manufacturing process” was selected as
the main keywords. Other related keywords were also added such as
“Operations Management”, “Process industry”, “Production process”,
“predictive analytics”. The keywords were used both separately and in
combination (using Boolean operators “and”/“or”) for a comprehensive
search within the following databases: Science Direct, Emerald,
Springer, Taylor & Francis, IEEE Xplore, Wiley Library, Inderscience,
Scopus (Elsevier) and Web of Sciences. The papers that used the
abovementioned keywords and/or their combination in the title, ab-
stract, and full text were identified.
The search started on June 12, 2018 and ended on June 15, 2019.
Even though the early research was not limited with a time restriction,
the final list of prescreened articles appeared in the period of
2004–2019. Prescreening has resulted in 304 papers, which were up-
loaded in Endnote, a reference management software package, for
further analysis. Then, a step of removing of duplicated reference was
carried out and followed by the elimination of out of scope and irre-
levant papers through a comprehensive reading of the abstract of re-
maining papers (Arunachalam et al., 2018; Wamba et al., 2015; Wang
et al., 2016). Finally, the current review is restrained to only papers,
which clearly describe the application of BDA in manufacturing pro-
cess. This constituted a final list of 62 papers covering the period from
2004 to 2019.
A. Belhadi, et al.
Fig. 3. Methodological approaches of the study.
3.1.2. Literature analysis
The list of papers collected is analyzed in two steps. In the first step,
descriptive and bibliometric analysis is complemented. Obviously, the
content of the selected papers is reviewed and classified based on ca-
tegories such as the distribution of publication year, research metho-
dology, among others (Belhadi, Sha’ri, Touriki, & Fezazi, 2018). The
descriptive analysis process is performed using bibliometric analysis in
order to synthesize existing research, and thematic analysis for further
conceptualization of the content of literature. To this end, BibExcel
software is used due to its flexibility and capability to manage big vo-
lumes of data along with its compatibility with applications such as
Excel, Pajek and Gephi. Afterwards, an issues analysis is used to identify
research trends and construct a theoretical framework of BDA cap-
abilities in manufacturing process. The purpose is to come across
themes, topics and conceptual aspects of BDA capabilities relevant to
manufacturing process context. The findings from the descriptive ana-
lysis and issues analysis are given in Section 4.
3.2. Multiple case studies: BDA implementation in North African
Phosphates Company
In order to get practical insights of BDA in manufacturing process in
real life context, in-depth data were retrieved from a number of context-
specific studies in the North African Phosphates Company (NAPC) (For
reasons of confidentiality, the name of the company cannot be dis-
closed; NAPC is a pseudonym). The aim was to conduct three case
studies and collect more in-depth and practical data from the company
to draw lessons for the effective use of BDA and the associated cap-
abilities and competitive outcomes for the manufacturing process. In
our case, the case study as a research strategy is strongly recommended
because of its perfect suitability for the building of theories during their
formative stage (Belhadi, Touriki, & fezazi, 2016; Gunasekaran et al.,
2018). Moreover, the multiple case studies approach allows studying
different facets of a phenomenon in real environment and particularly
while the phenomenon and its conditions cannot be lightly explained
(Ketokivi & Choi, 2014). Therefore, the multiple-case studies approach
was selected.
3.2.1. General situation of the study area
NAPC is a leading manufacturer of phosphates and its derivatives
located in North Africa. The 95% state-owned firm, charged with
managing the North African country’s vast reserves of phosphate, pro-
duces a number of derivative products such as phosphoric acid, feeds
and fertilizers. In 2017, NAPC was at the midpoint of a $20 billion
industrial transformation program with the aim of enhancing its in-
dustrial capacity, upgrading cost effectiveness, and stimulating business
competitiveness. The program hinged on outreaching the traditional
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Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
activities of mining and exporting raw phosphate rock towards greater
production of phosphoric acid and finished fertilizer products. In the
next phase of the program, the company planned to ramp up its focus
on fertilizer production, especially for markets in Africa, where ferti-
lizer historically was not well used. Consequently, a huge opportunity
arises to feed and take advantage of the growing demand of fertilizer by
proposing products suitable to the needs of African farmers. In order to
cope with that increase, the digital revolution and digitalization at all
levels comes across as a new challenge. Therefore, the different entities
of the company took advantage of the industrial program to integrate
the digitization component into the different manufacturing processes
(Fig. 4). The company is handling a variety of manufacturing processes
and technologies over two production sites. In the mining site, various
manufacturing processes extract and prepare the phosphate rock, which
is the main input of the chemical site responsible of the manufacturing
of phosphoric acid and various qualities of feeds (MCP/DCP) a long
with a wide variety of NPK-based fertilizers. NAPC aims for a qualita-
tive leap with digital and big-data analytics to enable industrial teams
to develop or even duplicate models of turnkey factories in Africa.
3.2.2. Strategy of data collection
As the author is directly involved in the project of digitalization of
manufacturing process of the NAPC, the case study follow the strategy
of an engaged research project to collect and analyze data. In engaged
or action research, the researcher and the company’s staff are working
together to resolve or to improve a given issue in the company, and to
contribute to the body of knowledge (Hutter, Haeussler, & Missbauer,
2018). Therefore, the strategy of data collection has based on direct and
on-site observation along with interviews of a number of the key
members of the project. Throughout the visits, the author started with
observation, collection of available materials and semi structured in-
terviews along with a conducted tour around the various entities im-
plementing BDA project. The main interviewer was one of the key en-
gineers directly involved in the project.
4. Findings and results from literature review
4.1. Bibliometric analysis
As mentioned earlier, the software BibExcel is used to exploit data
in RIS format, which includes all the required bibliographic information
for the papers. The focus is on information related to publication year,
authors, title, journal, keywords and affiliations.
4.1.1. Distribution of papers per year of publication
As shown in Fig. 5, the distribution of papers per year indicates a
clear increasing trend regarding the number of publications dealing
A. Belhadi, et al.
Fig. 4. Flowchart of the overall manufacturing process of the company.
with BDA in manufacturing process. Actually, starting from 2014, a
steady rise of the number of papers can be noticed, within a range from
seven articles in 2014 to 22 articles in the 2018. Moreover, most of the
publications were appeared in last four years (85% of total publica-
tions). The trend highlights that there is a significant increase in the
interest among researchers to investigate the topic of BDA in manu-
facturing process.
4.1.2. Affiliation statistics
Using BibExcel, the affiliations of all first authors were taken out
from the RIS data file. Afterwards, the country in which the institution
of the first author is located was extracted for further analysis plotted in
Fig. 6. Although the distribution of papers by first authors’ affiliations
shows that researchers worldwide (26 countries from the five con-
tinents) are interested in research in the topic of BDA in manufacturing
process, institutions in USA and China dominated the top five list of
contributing institutions. This list contains also Germany, Taiwan and
Fig. 5. Distribution of papers per year of publication.
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Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
South Korea.
4.1.3. Keywords statistics
In a similar vein, BibExcel was used to take out the keywords uti-
lized in the articles and the frequency of usage was calculated for fur-
ther analysis given in Table 1. The top used keywords are “Big Data”,
“Big Data analytics”, “Data Mining”, “Manufacturing Processes” and
“Process control”. These keywords are the effective search keywords of
the study.
4.1.4. Contributing authors and journals
Table 2 illustrates the top ten contributing authors along with their
number of publications. An astounding four authors, i.e. Zhong RY,
Werth D, Krumeich J and Loos P tied for first place with three pub-
lications for each. Followed by six other authors with two publications
for each.
Finally, Table 3 depicts the contribution of journals according to the
A. Belhadi, et al. Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099

Fig. 6. Distribution of papers by first authors’ affiliations.

number of published articles. It is noticeable that eight journals shared

Table 1
List of the most frequently used keywords.
about one-third of the reviewed articles. These journals are Computers
& Industrial Engineering (CAIE), Computers and Chemical Engineering
Keywords Frequency Keywords Frequency (CCE), International Journal of Production Research (IJPR), The In-
Big Data 26 Manufacturing Data 4 ternational Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology (TIJAMT),
Processing Industrial Management & Data Systems (IMDS), Journal of Process
Big Data Analytics 12 Manufacturing 4 Control (JPC), Journal of Cleaner Production (JCLP) and Journal of
Data Mining 8 Process Industry 4 Failure Analysis and Prevention (JFAP). The two other thirds of the
Manufacturing 8 Data Analytics 3
published articles are shared between 22 other journals and 18 inter-
Processes
Process Control 5 Industries 3 national conferences.
Internet of Things 5 Operations Management 3
Data Analysis 5 Optimization 3 4.2. Issues analysis
Machine Learning 5 Predictive Analytics 3
Energy Efficiency 4 Quality Control 3
Having carried out the descriptive analysis of selected papers
through bibliometric analysis, the analysis of issues is used to browse
BDA issues in manufacturing processes in order to conceptualize BDA
Table 2 capabilities. This is a philosophical conceptualization, which is con-
Top ten contributing authors. sidered as a first step towards theory building (Seuring & Müller, 2008).
Authors Number of publications Following the guidance of several authors (e.g. Arunachalam et al.,
2018; Seuring & Müller, 2008), a down top approach is used here re-
Zhong RY 3
laying on reading the articles repeatedly. The deeply reading and re-
Werth D 3
Krumeich J 3 reading of the papers allowed to develop a conceptual framework to
Loos P 3 pave the way and circumscribe BDA capabilities in manufacturing
Akter S 2 processes (Fig. 7).
Chien CF 2 There are three layers toward conceptualizing BDA capabilities for
Chongwatpol J 2
Gunasekaran A 2
manufacturing process. The first layer of BDA capabilities is the man-
Hammer M 2 ufacturing process challenges, which refer to the components of the
Liu Y 2 manufacturing process with the greatest potential of value to catch.
These components include, in addition to Quality and Process Control
(Q&PC), other high-impact components such as Energy & Environment
Efficiency (E&EE), Proactive diagnosis and Maintenance (PD&M) and
Table 3 Safety and Risk Analysis (S&RA). All these components generate a huge
Distribution of the reviewed paper in various journals and conferences. stream of data and thrive on a number of BDA faculties allowing to
transform data to actions. These faculties include Data Warehousing
Journal Number of published %
articles (DW), Data Aggregation and Integration (DA&I), Data Analytics and
Modeling (DA&M) and, Data-Driven Culture (DDC). In the third layer
Computers & Industrial Engineering 7 10.30% concerns the values that BDA could provide to manufacturing process.
Computers and Chemical Engineering 5 7.35%
Indeed, BDA embodies quite few values such as enhancing transpar-
International Journal of Production Research 5 7.35%
The International Journal of Advanced 3 4.41% ency, improving performance, supporting decision making and enhan-
Manufacturing Technology cing knowledge. Further description of the different layers of the fra-
Industrial Management & Data Systems 2 2.94% mework is given in the following sections.
Journal of Process Control 2 2.94%
Journal of Cleaner Production 2 2.94%
Journal of Failure Analysis and Prevention 2 2.94% 4.2.1. Manufacturing process challenges
Others (one reference of each journal) 22 32.36% Table 4 provides the distribution of papers by the challenges of
International conferences 18 26.47% manufacturing process addressed by BDA. Above all, it is noticeable
Total 68 100.00%
that numerous papers dealt with more than one manufacturing process
challenge addressed by BDA. Afterwards, the overwhelming majority of

7
A. Belhadi, et al.
Fig. 7. Overall framework of BDA capabilities in manufacturing process.
the papers are about Q&PC (51 papers). This is followed by E&EE, PD&
M and S&RA with respectively 18, 9 and 9 papers.
Quality and Process Control (Q&PC): In the near future, organi-
zations that are able to monitor their operations through the fast-paced
increasing amount of data to forecast their quality fault and proactively
control their processes by means of advanced analytics will be in ad-
vance of their competitors (Krumeich, Werth, & Loos, 2016). In doing
so, He and Wang (2018) talked about a new generation of Statistical
Process Control (SPC) dealing with complex and multivariable with
which MSPM methods may fail or lead to misleading results (multi-
modal distribution, dynamics, nonlinear relationships between vari-
ables, non-Gaussianity, time-varying characteristics, other character-
istics such as outliers, gross errors and/or failed sensors). This new
generation of SPC implies the use of more and more Model Predictive
Control (MPC) (Chongwatpol, 2015; Isaksson, Harjunkoski, & Sand,
2018; Krumeich et al., 2016; Li & Kashiwagi, 2005; Zhuchkov, 2015)
through the integration of advanced BDA techniques such as Control
Chart Pattern Recognition (CCPR), Regression-Based Methods, Neural
Networks, Support Vector Methods (Lee, Yoon, & Kim, 2017; Tewari &
Dwivedi, 2019; Weese, Martinez, Megahed, & Jones-Farmer, 2016).
Another aspect of QP&C is Alarm management mentioned by Hu, Shah,
and Chen (2018) which relay on a set of BDA techniques such as Run
Length Distribution & Delay Timer Analysis (RLD&DTA), Chattering
Index (CI), Oscillating Alarm Analysis (OAA), Alarm Flood Analysis
(AFA), Causality Inference for Alarms (CIA)) and Mode-Dependent
Alarm Analysis (MDAA). The aim is to predict the occurrence of ab-
normal situations and then prevent their propagation along the inter-
connected pathways to cause significant and catastrophic disruptions in
the process. In another side, and either when little is known about the
process or information is unavailable as to what forms an out of-control
event, machine learning techniques such as Big Data Approximating
Control (BDAC), PCA/PLS, k-means clustering, Self-organizing map
(SOM) and manifold learning methods are used (Ge et al., 2017;
8
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
Stanley, 2018; Weese et al., 2016). This is to spot correlations and
causal relations between process variables to capture material and in-
formation flow paths in the process (Hu et al., 2018; Lee, Shin, & Realff,
2018).
Energy and Environment Efficiency (E&EE): Bowed to the over-
whelming pressure of limited natural resources and growing serious
environmental issues (Belhadi, Touriki, & fezazi, 2018), manufacturing
processes are placing energy saving and emission reduction as two
important challenges must be addressed by BDA (Zhang, Ma, Yang, Lv,
& Liu, 2018). For instance, advanced analytical tool can be applied to
optimize the factors that are believed to have the biggest impact on
environmental performance. Zhang et al. (2018) proved this fact by
proposing a big data driven analytical framework based on two tech-
nologies, i.e., energy big data acquisition and energy big data mining,
which are utilized to reduce the energy consumption and emission for
energy-intensive manufacturing industries. Advanced technologies im-
plemented along with sophisticated operating conditions make the
understanding of the energy consumption attitude very hard since very
complicated, nonlinear dynamic variables are included (Chongwatpol,
2016). Therefore, BDA is vital to better understand and control the
operational parameters, optimize energy management, and reduce en-
vironmental impact (Chiang et al., 2017). In doing so, BDA has been
widely applied in manufacturing processes such as predictive energy
consumption models (Eckstein et al., 2016; Grossmann, 2014; Shao, Li,
Gu, Zhang, & Luo, 2018; Shin, Woo, & Rachuri, 2014), smart grid
management (Chiang et al., 2017) and building energy management
(Favoino, Fiorito, Cannavale, Ranzi, & Overend, 2016; Hammer, 2018).
Proactive diagnosis and Maintenance (PD&M): Besides its use in
manufacturing process for quality and environment issues, BDA is also
being incorporated in another critical challenge facing the manu-
facturing process namely, proactive diagnosis and maintenance of
equipment. One of the early known industry applications of PD&M is
the Condition-based Maintenance (CBM) (Krumeich et al., 2016), which
 A. Belhadi, et al.

Table 4
Challenges of BDA related to manufacturing process.
Challenges Key elements References Number %

Quality and Process Control (Q&PC),
• Statistical Process control Li and Kashiwagi (2005), M’Sahli and Matlaya (2005), López-Escobar, González-Palma, Almorza, Mayorga, and 52 59.09%
• Alarm management Carnero (2012), Krumeich et al. (2014), Grossmann (2014), Qin (2014), Yang, Park, Cho, Song, and Kim (2014),
• Connectivity and causality analysis Chongwatpol (2015), MacGregor, Bruwer, Miletic, Cardin, and Liu (2015), O’Donovan, Leahy, Bruton, and
• Unsupervised Learning Approaches to Process Monitoring O’Sullivan (2015), Stojanovic, Dinic, and Stojanovic (2015), Severson, Chaiwatanodom, and Braatz (2015),
Zhuchkov (2015), Eckstein et al. (2016), Krumeich et al. (2016), Kumar et al. (2016), Li (2016), Smirnov and
Nasonov (2016), Qiu et al. (2016), Wang et al. (2016), Weese et al. (2016), Chen et al. (2016), Beneventi et al.
(2017), Chen (2017), Chiang et al. (2017), Chien, Liu, and Chuang (2017), Choi et al. (2017), Ge et al. (2017),
Hammer, Somers, Karre, and Ramsauer (2017), Ji and Wanga (2017), Lee et al. (2017), Lindström, Larsson,
Jonsson, and Lejon (2017), Wamba et al. (2017), Zhang, Ren, et al. (2017), Zhang, Li, et al. (2017), Zhong, Xu,
Chen, and Huang (2017), Amini and Chang (2018), Gunasekaran et al. (2018), Hammer (2018), He and Wang

9
(2018), Hu et al. (2018), Isaksson et al. (2018), Khakifirooz, Chien, and Chen (2018), Kho, Lee, and Zhong
(2018), Kozjek et al. (2018), Lee et al. (2018), Mehta, Butkewitsch-Choze, and Seaman (2018), Ning and You
(2018), Sadati et al. (2018), Stanley (2018), Wamba, Akter, and Bourmont (2018), Wang et al. (2018), Tewari
and Dwivedi (2019)
Energy and Environment Efficiency (E& • Energy big data acquision and mining Grossmann (2014), Shin et al. (2014), Shrouf, Ordieres, and Miragliotta (2014), O’Donovan et al. (2015), 18 20.45%
EE) • Energy consumption patterns Chongwatpol (2016), Favoino et al. (2016), Li (2016), Papacharalampopoulos et al. (2016), Paul, Zhong, and
• Smart Grids Bose (2016), Beneventi et al. (2017), Chiang et al. (2017), Ge et al. (2017), Zhang, Ren, et al. (2017), Zhang, Li,
et al. (2017), Hammer (2018), Hidalgo et al. (2018), Lee et al. (2018), Shao et al. (2018), Zhang et al. (2018),
Shukla and Mattar (2019)
Proactive diagnosis and Maintenance (PD • Condition based Maintenance Qin (2014), O’Donovan et al. (2015), Krumeich et al. (2016), Beneventi et al. (2017), Lindström et al. (2017), 9 10.23%
&M) • Online/Real Time predictive maintenance Sun, Jämsä-Jounela, Todorov, Olivier, and Craig (2017), Zhang, Ren, et al. (2017), Zhang, Li, et al. (2017),
• Tele-Maintenance Hammer (2018), Isaksson et al. (2018)
Safety and Risk Analysis (S&RA) • Bayesian based HAZOP O’Donovan et al. (2015), Li (2016), Chiremsel et al. (2016), Khakzad and Reniers (2016), Choi et al. (2017), 9 10.23%
• Advanced inherently safer design Zerrouki and Smadi (2017), Hammer (2018), Hu et al. (2018), Wang, Cheng, et al. (2018), Wang, Liu, et al.
• Safety instrumented systems (2018)
Total 88 100%

Note: Some articles are included more than once since they discuss more than one manufacturing process challenge.
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
A. Belhadi, et al. Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099

Table 5
Classification of Data Mining and Analytics techniques.
Categories Offline techniques Online techniques References

Descriptive analytics • Fine-Kinney • Visualization & Data Modeling Wang, Cheng, et al. (2018), Wang, Liu, et al. (2018), Mehta et al.
techniques • continuous quality control • Aggregation & (2018), Lindström et al. (2017), Kozjek et al. (2018), Kho et al.
• Data Visualisation Contextualization (2018), Zhang et al. (2018), Chongwatpol (2016), Krumeich et al.
• Big data perception & acquisition • Event Bus (2014), Yang et al. (2014), Tewari and Dwivedi (2019)
• data mining
• In-memory management & connectivity
• API Management
Inquisitive analytics • Random Forest (RF) • Multivariate latent variable Chien et al. (2017), Chiremsel et al. (2016), Kozjek et al. (2018),
techniques • Excursions diagnosis (PCA/PLS) Kho et al. (2018), MacGregor et al. (2015), Hidalgo et al. (2018),
• Fault Tree Analysis • self-adaptive stream processing Amini and Chang (2018), He and Wang (2018); Tewari and
• heuristic algorithms for scheduling tasks: • Data classification Dwivedi (2019), Hu et al. (2018), Kumar et al. (2016), Sadati et al.
• First-in-first-out (FIFO) (2018), Shukla and Mattar (2019)
• Earliest-planned-time (EPT)
• forecasting
• K-means Clustering
• Gradient Descent Optimization
• Process Monitoring
• Statistical process monitoring
• Sampling
• Hadoop MapReduce programming
• data-driven modeling
• meta-heuristic optimization
• Characterization & Classification
Predictive analytics • Bayesian Network • Classifiers for pattern Chiremsel et al. (2016), Chen et al. (2016), Eckstein et al. (2016),
techniques • linear and a nonlinear Predictive Control recognitions Lindström et al. (2017), Khakzad and Reniers (2016),
• control chart and defect prediction • Support Vector Machine (SVM) Chongwatpol (2016), Ji and Wanga (2017), Krumeich et al.
• Process Analytics • online predictive maintenance (2014), Tewari and Dwivedi (2019), Kumar et al. (2016), M’Sahli
• Process Prediction • fault prediction and Matlaya (2005), Shin et al. (2014), Zhuchkov (2015), Weese
• Predictive control • Streaming Analytics et al. (2016), Khakifirooz et al. (2018), Ning and You (2018),
• Statistical Learning Methods • pattern matching and Stanley (2018)
• Regression analysis approximation
• Cluster analysis
• neural network
• clustering-based on prediction scores
• Kernel Smoothing Methods
• principal component analysis
• Quantitative modeling
Prescriptive Analytics • prognostic analysis Wang, Cheng, et al. (2018), Wang, Liu, et al. (2018), Chongwatpol
techniques • Proactive Alerts (2016), Krumeich et al. (2014)
• Bayesian belief network
• time-series model

integrates present process states and events to estimate when equip-
ment requires maintenance to minimize unplanned shutdown based on
the usage, age, and performance of the equipment (Chiang et al., 2017).
According to Krumeich et al. (2016), big data acquisition and sensor
technology allow to locate and cluster equipment defects in order to
easily identify, diagnose and solve equipment problems before a failure
actually occurs. Other aspects of PD&M have been widely discussed in
the literature. For instance, Beneventi, Bartolini, Cavazzoni, and Benini
(2017), Zhang, Ren, Liu, and Si (2017), and Zhang, Li, Li, Yang, and Zou
(2017) discussed the Online/Real Time Predictive Maintenance re-
cognizable by the integration of equipment behavior patterns by
finding thresholds and relations between parameters that can be used to
indicate potential problems occurring (i.e., diagnostics) and main-
tenance requirement (i.e., prognostics). Finally, BDA is also applied for
remote or tele-maintenance of equipment along with some other
maintenance-related functions such as management of spares in-
ventories and consumption (Hammer, 2018).
Safety and Risk Analysis (S&RA): Owing to the advance and the
sophistication of the current manufacturing processes, risk and safety
analysis is today more challenging and time-consuming (Zerrouki &
Smadi, 2017). Undoubtedly, Safety and Risk Analysis in manufacturing
process would benefit by proper application of BDA (Choi, Wallace, &
Wang, 2017). As stated by Hammer (2018), application of advanced
Analytics along with rendering and acting on the given insights lead to
set up strong safety requirements and thus protect the physical safety of
the workers, users and the environment. Zerrouki and Smadi (2017)
demonstrated the use of Bayesian Networks (BN) in HAZOP analysis. In
the same vein, Khakzad and Reniers (2016) applied Advanced Analytics
to risk-based design and decision making in chemical plants to employ
the principles of Inherently Safer Design (ISD) and Land-Use Planning
(LUP). In addition, Chiremsel, Said, and Chiremsel (2016) used Ad-
vanced Analytics to diagnose the Safety Instrumented Systems (SISs) in
order to prevent the occurrence of hazardous events and to alleviate
their aftermath to workers, equipment, and environment. Hu et al.
(2018) and Li (2016) underlined, in addition to HAZOP-based analytics,
the diagnosis of abnormal working conditions and decisions on emer-
gency treatment of major accidents.
4.2.2. Big data analytics faculties
Undoubtedly, the application of BDA holds enormous potential of
improvements for the different challenges that manufacturing processes
are facing. The driving force behind this huge potential is represented
by quite few faculties of BDA that can benefit the manufacturing pro-
cess.
Data Warehousing and Management (DW&M): In context of a
manufacturing process, data is much dispersed and can be extracted
from extremely varied sources. For that, BDA offers the faculty of col-
lecting, integrating, transforming and storing data from disparate data
sources where traditional database systems are ineffective (Hu et al.,
2018). DW&M is a prerequisite therewith successful gain of data mining
can be insured. This would lead to improved data quality enabling the
enhancement of the accuracy and performance of the subsequent

10
A. Belhadi, et al.
mining process (Cheng et al., 2018). Hidalgo, Rosas, Vasquez, and
Wladdimiro (2018) talked about self-adaptive stream processing sys-
tems dealing with the high frequency data streams featuring time-
varying characteristics that challenge the traditional stream processing
systems capacities. Krumeich et al. (2016) outlined the ability to pre-
process real-time data via the in-memory data management platform so
that structured information can be extracted from unstructured multi-
media data. Zhang, Ren, et al. (2017), and Zhang, Li, et al. (2017)
highlighted the efficiency of the business-to-manufacturing markup
language (B2MML) and extensible markup language (XML).
Data Mining and Analytics (DM&A): Data mining algorithms or
methods are applied to extract useful insights and knowledge from huge
amount of data (Cheng et al., 2018). Embedding big data mining result
into the Process Monitoring System (PMS) and Decision Support System
(DSS) creates a closed-loop system of feedback gathering and timely
adjustment in order to achieve process optimization on all manu-
facturing process challenges (Zhang, Ren, et al., 2017). Actually, DM&A
enables decision-making systems to thrive on self-learning, cognitive
faculties to address real-time data and complex interrelationships.
Hammer (2018) and Qiu, He, and Ji (2016) considered DM&A as a vital
nexus between operational technology and information technology to
form advanced process control systems (APC) with advanced analytics.
Chiang et al. (2017) reported the successful use of Enterprise Manu-
facturing Intelligence (EMI) in the case of chemical sector.
Techniques of DM&A can be divided according to the time until
decision in two categories, viz. real-time techniques and offline tech-
niques. Table 5 and Fig. 8 depict the classification of offline/online DM
&A techniques according to the four stages of the BDA namely de-
scriptive, inquisitive, predictive and prescriptive analytics.
As shown in Fig. 8a, apart from a quite few studies dealing with
prescriptive analytics techniques (7% of studies), most research works
are primarily concerned with the study and implementation of de-
scriptive, inquisitive and predictive analytics techniques (93% of stu-
dies). On the other hand, according to Fig. 8b, offline techniques are
used much more than online techniques (38 offline techniques were
levied against 12 online techniques), especially in papers offering the
analysis of some real case studies such as Kozjek, Vrabič, Rihtaršič, and
PeterButala (2018), Shukla and Mattar (2019), and Tewari and Dwivedi
(2019).
Data-Driven Culture (DDC): Data-driven culture is an inviolable
faculty that BDA brings to the way of monitoring and optimization of
manufacturing process. DDC is a thought pattern that summarizes a set
of convictions, mindsets, attitudes, and ways towards process optimi-
zation. In traditional processes, the vast troves of data collected is ty-
pically used only for monitoring purposes and not as a basis for im-
proving operations (Sadati, Chinnam, & Nezhad, 2018). However, the
application of BDA participates effectively in culture change towards
fact-based decision making through embedded analytics. Hammer
(2018) argued that changes in decision-making culture gained by BDA
could meaningfully improve process performance.
Fig. 8. Analysis of used Data Mining and Analytics techniques. a. distribution of DM&A techniques by categories. b. online vs offline techniques numbers.
11
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
4.2.3. Big data analytics values
When applying BDA in manufacturing process, huge amounts of
collected data can be transformed into several values and benefits for
the different components of the manufacturing process. The objective is
to leverage the knowledge and that to increase the value of information
(Lee et al., 2018).
Enhancing transparency: The first key value realized from BDA is
the improvement of intra-and inter-organizational transparency and
accountability. As stated by Chongwatpol (2015), process, which used
to tap big data, will receive real-time information from sensors, RFID
and other devices in true transparency and without external inter-
ference.
Improving performance: It is unanimously acknowledged that the
application of BDA leads to a significant improvement in operational
performance in all the challenges of the process (quality, energy,
emission, safety …). Case studies indicate a meaningful improvement in
performance (e.g. Chiang et al., 2017; Chongwatpol, 2016, 2015;
Isaksson et al., 2018).
Supporting decision-making: According to Isaksson et al. (2018),
BDA generates new insights and knowledge-based data disposable for
consultancy by the manufacturing process in order to support more
decentralized decision-making. Zhang, Ren, et al. (2017) discussed the
ability of BDA techniques such as Bayesian, and decision trees of en-
abling the decision makers to make flexible decisions in the presence of
attributes such as flexibility, quality, innovativeness, pro-activity and
cost. Lee et al. (2018) explored the use of recent advances in deep
learning and reinforcement learning to elaborate decision policy.
Enhancing Knowledge: Besides technical values, BDA is confirmed
to cover intelligence organization, including work and staff skills (Li,
2016). As shown by a case study presented by Li (2016), BDA allows to
perform job skills training and to study via technological applications
such as virtual reality technology, simulation platform, and 3D inter-
action and demonstration. Choi et al. (2017) argued that BDA helps to
understand phenomena, which cannot be theoretically explained as
well.
4.3. Critical analysis and research trends
The findings of our literature review stressed out how manu-
facturing process could use BDA capabilities, matter to extract value
from huge data sets as big data through a three-layer framework.
Consequently, BDA capabilities have confirmed essential to make pro-
cess engineers and managers obtain drastically more information than
before, to what concerns different challenges in their manufacturing
process. However, a set of trends can be identified from the literature
review conducted. In reality, these trends constitute research gaps that
are still not fully addressed and thus they need much focus.
4.3.1. Research trend 1: BDA-enabler architecture
In manufacturing process, data are streamed from multiple,
A. Belhadi, et al.
heterogeneous and dispersed sources (structural and unstructured).
Therefore, the implementation of data mining and BDA requires a smart
architecture based on data management and storage strategies, gov-
ernance and risk management (Chen, 2017) in order to deal with large
volume of data from different sources. Indeed, volume, variety, velocity
and the other seven V’s that characterize big data mean that using BDA
needs high-performance resources such as storage space and processing
modules (Chiang et al., 2017; Isaksson et al., 2018). According to our
literature review, authors emphasizes this issue through two major
approaches. First, some proposed the establishment of internal data
warehousing which enables to store and manages collected data
(Beneventi et al., 2017; Choi et al., 2017; Hutter et al., 2018). This
solution allows companies to have full control over their data and
provide more security but it requires huge investment costs in terms of
implementation, engineering and maintenance. Second, some other
works proposed the use of solutions based on outsourcing data such as
Cloud Manufacturing (CM) (Kumar, Shankar, Choudhary, & Thakur,
2016; Papacharalampopoulos, Stavridis, Stavropoulos, & Chryssolouris,
2016; Qiu et al., 2016). This solution reduces costs but poses a sig-
nificant risk on data security.
Although there is an increasing trend towards the implementation
of BDA-enabler architecture, this is currently an underexplored area
due to the several issues that arises such as data security and privacy
(Hammer, 2018), crisis and risk management (Zerrouki & Smadi,
2017), implementation costs (Shukla & Mattar, 2019), etc.
4.3.2. Research trend 2: Real-time data mining approaches
The maximum potential from BDA can be derived for optimized
decision making while controlling the manufacturing process ahead of
time (Hammer, 2018; Hu et al., 2018). One of the most important issue
believed to be faced by the manufacturing process while using BDA is
the time interval until the decision (Chiang et al., 2017; He & Wang,
2018) because of the inevitably loss of process performance between
the treatment of offline data and the proactive decision (Choi et al.,
2017). The time scale of this interval may vary depending on the
computational environment, e.g., real-time vs. offline, and the appli-
cation domain. Thus, the ability to gather and process instantaneously
online data is of paramount importance.
Our literature review shows an apparent trend towards BDA models
able to be run in a real-time, streaming computational environment in
the context of manufacturing process (Ji & Wanga, 2017; Kumar et al.,
2016; Lee et al., 2018; Li, 2016). In recent years, real-time approaches
have been investigated extensively for descriptive analytics (Hidalgo
et al., 2018; Tewari & Dwivedi, 2019) and inquisitive analytics (He &
Wang, 2018; Ji & Wanga, 2017). On the other hand, and unlike de-
scriptive and inquisitive analytics, which have gone forward towards
these trends to be appropriate to use in data-intensive applications,
predictive and prescriptive analytics are still at their infancy. Apart
from some applications of online and real-time Predictive Maintenance
(e.g. Beneventi et al., 2017; Zhang, Ren, et al., 2017), studies on pre-
dictive and prescriptive analytics are still conceptual (Cheng et al.,
2018; Chiang et al., 2017; Hammer, 2018).
When investigating the reasons behind this lateness, multiple issues
arise such as the need to enhance the speed of requests processing and
online model updating (He & Wang, 2018). For instance, Amini and
Chang (2018) admitted that the shortage in their computational en-
vironment would prevent real-time monitoring from taking place.
Chiang et al. (2017) argued that in spite of the significant strive to ramp
up storage capacities, there is an ongoing need to swiftly store and
process data in order to achieve optimal decision in real-time. On the
other hand, several authors have mentioned the cultural issue within
process industries. Chiang et al. (2017) argued that the process industry
is in nature slow to respond to real-time customer feedback. Therefore,
real-time applications harbor many difficulties to be included in the
mindset of process managers.
Overall, the emergence of IoT and sensor-driven data in the process
12
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
industry has led to an increasing demand for real-time systems, which
need more focus in order to contribute to further advancements of BDA
research in manufacturing process.
4.3.3. Research trend 3: Integrated human-data intelligence
Human capital has been considered as a ‘must have’ for developing
BDA capabilities in manufacturing process. In a company, human ca-
pital encompasses all the experience, knowledge, judgment, risk-taking
propensity, and wisdom of people related to the manufacturing process
(Hammer, 2018). Building upon our literature review, several studies
argue that human intelligence alongside computational intelligence will
experience significant evolution in the near future, reaching an ad-
vanced stage (Chiang et al., 2017; Li, 2016). On the other hand, an
underpinning issue is also arisen concerning the role of the human
operator in the era of BDA and with more and more automated man-
ufacturing process (Isaksson et al., 2018). Let us say that the machine
still cannot replace human intelligence and the operator is still needed
in the manufacturing process. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to
consider how the operator interacts with model-based control and op-
timization in order not to progressively weaken the operators’ skills
(Isaksson et al., 2018; Shukla & Mattar, 2019). Authors such as Li
(2016) discussed automated learning systems that are important to
combine human and machine intelligence and must be effectively in-
tegrated with human learning and decision environment.
It is clearly observed that the strive for a data-driven system with
humans and technical components working synergistically together in a
socio- technical unit, providing creative value-added by working easily
together is a trend in the literature (Hammer, 2018; Shukla & Mattar,
2019).
4.3.4. Research trend 4: Prescriptive analytics within the manufacturing
process
Prescriptive analytics is the most advanced stage of data analytics
and can provide the greatest intelligence and value to the manu-
facturing process (Hammer, 2018). The application of prescriptive
analytics has been increasingly sparking research concern within the
manufacturing process in recent times (Wang, Cheng, & Deng, 2018;
Wang, Liu, & Qin, 2018). For several researchers, prescriptive analytics,
also called operational analytics, is increasingly sought because it
constitutes the next round towards enhancing data analytics maturity
and triggers optimized decision making without human intervention
ahead of time (Chongwatpol, 2016; Hammer, 2018; Wang, Cheng,
et al., 2018). In fact, with the temporal nature of the manufacturing
process, gaining business value from the large amount of data generated
requires action expeditiously on real-time events before the value fades.
This requires more than a prediction; it needs determining accurately
what to do and when to do it. Therefore, prescriptive analytics is ex-
pected to get a lot more common and pervasive among a large array of
practitioners.
In spite of this, our literature review clearly shows that prescriptive
analytics within the manufacturing process is still in an early stage
compared to descriptive, inquisitive or even predictive analytics. With
the exception of some few initiatives (e.g. Chongwatpol, 2016;
Krumeich et al., 2014; Wang, Cheng, et al., 2018), the potential of
prescriptive analytics is far from being well exploited. Therefore, fur-
ther research is required towards the direction of combining the out-
comes of predictive analytics with big data and advanced algorithms in
order to advance the next generation of manufacturing process based
on analytics systems. This will lead to not only define risks and po-
tential abnormalities while addressing the manufacturing process
challenges, but also suggest actionable levers, effectively providing
accurate, reliable, real-time decision support to process managers.
5. Insights and learnings from multiple-case studies
The goal of the case studies was to further explore the
A. Belhadi, et al.
interdependencies of core BDA capabilities in a real-life context of
manufacturing process and uncover emerging themes.
5.1. Description of the case studies
We discuss three projects of BDA implementation at different plants
subsidiaries to NAPC. The projects are part of a larger project of digital
transformation of the company’s operations in which the top manage-
ment shows clearly its commitment. We selected these cases because
they are well documented, they involved BDA capabilities, they came
up with implications for our research trends and they are judged as
successful projects.
5.1.1. Case 1: Implementing BDA in a fertilizers plant
In April 2018, a fertilizers plant was chosen to be a pilot area of the
project of BDA implementation. For that, the management hired a
highly qualified staff of IT engineers and data scientists to bring support
to process and maintenance engineers during the implementation pro-
gram. The first prerequisite is the implementation of a real-time system
through the creation of a Data Hub in which multiple sources of data
from different stages of the manufacturing process (structured and
unstructured) across various departments (production, maintenance,
laboratories, …) are integrated. The aim was to combine these data
with historical information for better process monitoring. In doing that,
a range of IT capabilities endowed the manufacturing process of the
company. For instance, Hadoop Data Lake, which tied also into HDFS
(Hadoop Distributed File System), was acquired in order to ensure DW&
M faculty. Actually, the Hadoop Data-Lake constitutes a solid infra-
structure for real-time data management besides several faculties such
as data gathering, historicizing, recovering, analyzing, presenting, and
visualizing. Several difficulties motivated the use of Hadoop Data Lake,
namely: (1) The OPC server is deployed in windows machine, which
present security risk, (2) Due to lack of Lora network, the context data
of smart sensors are not exploited, and (3) The storage capacity of DSC
historical data is limited to one year. The use of Hadoop Data-Lake
enables to bring together a vast variety of data from different platforms
linked to the manufacturing process such as:
• PI system: used as self-service monitoring capability of data Plant by
Process Engineer,
• OPM Treatment: used as a tool of performance monitoring,
• MyOPS platform: already deployed as a mandatory tool for the HSE
processes & the maintenance reliability processes,
• Oracle EAM: addresses the comprehensive and routine asset main-
tenance requirements of asset intensive organizations,
• LIMS: allows to effectively managing the flow of samples and as-
sociated data to improve lab efficiency through standardizing
workflows, tests and procedures, while providing accurate controls
of the process.
• Connect and AlMaarifa: two platforms, by applying the principle of
Internet of People (IoP), constitute an information space where
people are interlinked and their knowledge and expertise are shared.
Besides the Data Hub, an Intelligent Monitoring System (ISM) was
implemented based on two dimensions; (1) a vast campaign of data
informatization using online sensors for process and environmental
parameters (concentration, emission of toxic gas, etc.), (2) Complex
Event Processing (CEP) using specific algorithms. The aim was to track
and process streams of data about occurred events by integrating
multiple sources with the aim to detect situations or patterns that
comprise a particular meaning for the system, such as opportunities or
threats, and to react to them.
5.1.2. Case 2: BDA implementation in a phosphoric acid plant
In the early 2019, BDA implementation project was conducted in a
phosphoric acid plant. The project was based on a tree maturity levels,
13
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
viz. people, organization and infrastructure.
People: A key activity at this level was to involve the workforce in
developing the vision. Accordingly, a number of workshops have been
organized to ensure that all employees have the same level of under-
standing of the overall project alongside BDA capabilities. Then, they
were invited to propose the issues to be covered by BDA implementa-
tion. The technique of change agent was used to ensure broad com-
munication and involvement of all employees. Afterwards, the staff has
undergone multiple training sessions on BDA modules and digital in-
terfaces in order to educate people to develop the ability to exploit
connected data systems. Another key at this level was the reinforcement
of the use of insight analysis and data interpretation to streamline op-
erational processes by creating routines for using historical and real-
time data analytics in the work process.
Organization: on the organization side, the focus was on introdu-
cing efficient and flexible structure to the implementation stage by
integrating a Stage-Gate project model with agile principles. In fact, a
multidisciplinary team was formed including people with an under-
standing of both the manufacturing processes and the digital archi-
tecture. This bridged programming and manufacturing and enabled the
organization to access the full potential of the data stream. In parallel,
the roles and responsibilities inherent in data management were de-
fined by a “Data governance guidelines”. Bringing in the right people
and defining their roles ensured the reliability of data management
system and amplified the organization’s digitalization potential.
Infrastructure: in order to create an enabled architecture for BDA
implementation, the first keystone was connecting existing applications
across data flow to create a common platform. Afterwards, a system of
real-time performance analysis was implemented based on cloud-based
connected services provided by PI system. The system was based on a
real-time data infrastructure that collects sensor-based data from many
different sources, stores them in a secure, central location to facilitate
their real-time visualization, analyze and share. The systems enabled
automated analysis of operational information and gave warning sig-
nals for environment, production and maintenance departments. Alerts
such as emissions, up/downtime, MTBF, MTTR and failure rates of
equipment and production tools were shared on-line to be analyzed and
consequential proactive maintenance boosted and operated accordingly
to attain a more sustainable plant, both in economical and eco-friendly
aspects as the lifetime is prolonged and durability enhanced.
5.1.3. Case 3: Implementation of an intelligent and self-controlled
production unit
The project was concerned the implementation of an intelligent and
self-controlled unit of the concentration of phosphoric acid. In that
vein, the unit needed to have four characteristics: (1) connectedness,
(2) context awareness, (3) intelligence and (4) metered services.
Therefore, the overall architecture of the system was based on cloud-
based manufacturing equipment using CPS and BDA.
The first step was to upgrade manufacturing equipment to cloud-
based manufacturing equipment. For that, several modules were in-
tegrated into the manufacturing devices in order to improve the cog-
nitive nature of the system in understanding its status and communicate
this information to the external environment.
• Intelligent adaptive control module, which covers the principal
control options such as interpolation calculation, input/output
management, motion control, etc. suing fuzzy logic and neural
network control,
• Equipment monitoring module, which monitors all the data attri-
butes (working progress of production tasks, real-time process
parameters, etc.) of cloud-based manufacturing equipment. The aim
is to generate production history in the cloud for subsequent data
analytics in the cyberspace.
• Data processing module functioning with the numerical control
kernel to pre-process all the unit condition data that is collected
A. Belhadi, et al. Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099

from different sensors before the data goes to the cloud for further

Rec1: The implementation of internal sourcing (Data Hub) to the storage and the processing of big data can resolve the issue of data security and privacy.

Rec4: Intelligent Monitoring System (IMS) using sensor-driven information and Complex Event Processing (CEP) can promote the implementation of
analysis.

Rec9: Generic BDA methods and algorithms utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning can serve as a basis while developing prescriptive
Rec3: The definition of roles and responsibilities inherent in data management through “Data governance guidelines” may reduce the risk of data

Rec8: Hiring skilled employees alongside advanced training sessions on data science can promote the tie of human-data intelligence connection

Rec10: Generalization of automation and sensor-driven information is of outmost importance in the next generation of prescriptive analytics
The data attributes were then transferred to the cloud via an OPC
system. The objective is to create a permanent link with the cyberspace
to maintain the digital twin of a cloud-based equipment. This stream is
bidirectional since it transfer back orders from the cyberspace to smart

Rec2: External sourcing such as cloud computing can offer several opportunities for data management at the expense of privacy

Rec7: Broad communication using IoP along with early involvement of all employees ensure the integration of humans in BDA
equipment to execute actions based on MQTT protocol.
The self-control of the unit of phosphoric acid concentration al-
lowed to increase the quality of produced phosphoric acid alongside

Rec5: Connection between the different process elements and applications is crucial to promote real-time monitoring
several environmental benefits such as the efficiency of water use
during washing cycles and the reduction in HF emissions.

5.2. Recommendations drawn from the case studies

Rec6: Cloud manufacturing (CM) can provide solutions to promote real-time techniques application
When analyzing the experiences of BDA implementation within the
manufacturing process in the case studies, several lessons can be
learned. Thereafter, a couple of recommendations would be useful to
address the research trends that emerge from the literature. Table 6
summarizes the proposed recommendations.

5.2.1. BDA-enabler architecture

During the case 1, a Data Hub relying on internal sourcing was
implemented; providing great benefits in term of the big storage ca-
pacity proposed by Hadoop Data Lake. Indeed, the huge capacity of
Data warehousing allowed keeping process parameters history for more
than one year available in the DCS, and then modeling more accurately
trends and tendencies based on advanced analytics. Although this so-

However, the issue of implementation costs arises

lution is not widespread in the literature due to the required investment
and the high technical complexity, it is shown to be beneficial espe-
cially to resolve the problem of privacy and data security.
Recommendation 1: The implementation of internal sourcing (Data
Hub) to the storage and the processing of big data can resolve the issue of
data security and privacy. However, the issue of implementation costs arises.
Another solution for BDA-enabler architecture implementation is to
rely on outsourcing resources provided by cloud manufacturing as ex-
real-time approaches

plored in case 2 and case 3. This is the most popular solution in the
Recommendations

literature (Kumar et al., 2016; Papacharalampopoulos et al., 2016; Qiu

et al., 2016) as it allows to get access to various functionalities while approaches

storing and processing data.

security

Recommendation 2: External sourcing such as cloud computing can

offer several opportunities for data management at the expense of privacy.
As shown in case 2, the definition of roles and responsibility related
Case 3

to data management strategy is of outmost importance in order to mi-

√

√
√

tigate the risk of privacy and data security.

Case 2

Recommendation 3: The definition of roles and responsibilities in-

herent in data management through “Data governance guidelines” may re-
√
√

√
√
√
√

duce the risk of data security.

Case 1

√
√

5.2.2. Real-time data mining approaches

Intelligent monitoring is a well-established system of technology
Prescriptive analytics within the manufacturing process
The summary of the proposed recommendations.

management that combines real-time sensing with project-specific data

processing such as complex event processing (CEP), predictive analy-
tics, and collaborative tools for data interpretation and decision-making
(Chen, Fan, & Chang, 2016; Hu et al., 2018; Krumeich et al., 2014).
Recommendation 4: Intelligent Monitoring System (IMS) using
Integrated Human-Data intelligence

sensor-driven information and Complex Event Processing (CEP) can pro-

Real-time data mining approaches

mote the implementation of real-time approaches.

In all case studies, the establishment of a communication between
BDA-enabler architecture

different elements and applications in the manufacturing process, either

by creating a common platform (case 1) or using virtual cyberspace
(case 2 and 3) is very beneficial for the manufacturing process to de-
Research trend

velop effective real-time monitoring.

Recommendation 5: Connection between the different process ele-
Table 6

ments and applications is crucial to promote real-time monitoring

One of the most remarkable field of interest while addressing real-

14
A. Belhadi, et al.
time challenge if BDA is cloud manufacturing (CM), which represents a
loosely-connected network of manufacturing services that can be
swiftly adopted in the process (Isaksson et al., 2018). In agreement with
several studies in the literature (e.g. Papacharalampopoulos et al.,
2016; Kumar et al., 2016; Qiu et al., 2016), the results of case 2 and
case 3 confirm the usefulness of CM in advancing real-time control of
the process.
Recommendation 6: Cloud manufacturing (CM) can provide solu-
tions to promote real-time techniques application.
5.2.3. Integrated Human-Data intelligence
The implementation of IoP along with knowledge share platforms in
case 1 (e.g. AlMaarifa of Knowledge Management and Connect) is be-
lieved to ensure an early involvement of human in BDA implementa-
tion. These platforms is a real tool for enhancing the knowledge of
operators who become more familiarized with new technologies.
Recommendation 7: Broad communication using IoP along with early
involvement of all employees ensure the integration of humans in BDA
The secret to leverage the upshots from BDA is to outfits managers
and operators with solid professional proficiency as depicted in case 2
and case 3. Hence, it is vital that companies provide analytical training
courses in fields like basic statistics, data mining and business in-
telligence to the process operators who will assume an important sup-
port part in the new information-rich work context.
Recommendation 8: Hiring skilled employees alongside advanced
training sessions on data science can promote the tie of human-data in-
telligence connection
5.2.4. Prescriptive analytics within the manufacturing process
A starting point of switching to the new generation of prescriptive
analytics is predictive BDA methods and algorithms. As described in
case 3, fuzzy logic and neural network were utilized. The same con-
clusion can be drawn from the extant literature (e.g. Chongwatpol,
2016; Krumeich et al., 2014; Wang, Cheng, et al., 2018; Wang, Liu,
et al., 2018).
Recommendation 9: Generic BDA methods and algorithms utilizing
artificial intelligence and machine learning can serve as a basis while de-
veloping prescriptive approaches.
It is of paramount importance to computerize the collection of data
all over the manufacturing process. To do so, sensors and intelligent
devices must be generalized to enhance the ability of the process to
exchange data and actions with the cyberspace.
Recommendation 10: Generalization of automation and sensor-
driven information is of outmost importance in the next generation of pre-
scriptive analytics.
6. Discussion and implications
Using BDA in an industrial context allows offering several oppor-
tunities for manufacturing processes. However, there is just few com-
panies that fully benefit from this proven potential especially for their
manufacturing processes (Choi et al., 2017; Isaksson et al., 2018). In
fact, despite the various outcomes of BDA in industrial fields, its de-
ployment is still very limited since there is no clear documentation that
groups together big data capabilities and classifies them according to
each context and to each use case. On the other hand, the extant re-
search work discussing the transformative potential of BDA is actually
dealing with different aspects of the use of BDA in manufacturing
context rather than focusing on manufacturing processes. Other works
focus primarily on the practical side and propose technical models for
the use of BDA and they generally deal with one capability at a time.
Nevertheless, most of these researches do not discuss the theoretical
aspects without proposing any model or referential that represents the
different BDA insights and capabilities.
The present study aimed to provide an overview of the different
opportunities offered by using BDA techniques thereby, it offers a
15
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
repository for researchers and companies interested in the enormous
potential of BDA. To do so, we have proceeded on three different axes:
• Firstly, we have conduct a systematic literature review on BDA in
the context of manufacturing process where we selected and con-
sidered 68 papers from the mains scientific data bases. A critical
analysis of literature was made based on a bibliometric and issues
analysis to classify selected papers according to BDA aspects, trends
and categories.
• Secondly, we propose an overall framework of BDA capabilities in
manufacturing process, which present a summary of manufacturing
process challenges, bid data analytics faculties and capabilities and
bid data analytics values. This architecture was proposed based on
the analysis of relevant works proposed in literature.
• Finally, we conduct a multiple case studies on a leading company
that has already implemented BDA in their manufacturing process.
The choice of the case studies was not arbitrary. In fact, we conduct
case studies on companies that use BDA to deal with the different
identified research trends in our critical analysis. The purpose of
these case studies is to compare the obtained results from im-
plementing BDA in these companies with results, affirmations and
predictions found in literature. We aimed also to analyze the cases
and give new lines of research advancement.
It is noteworthy that our paper is the first that combines a sys-
tematic literature review with multiple case study to offer a holistic
overview regarding implementing BDA in manufacturing process.
6.1. Theoretical implications
The present paper yields some interesting insights for theoretical
implications of using BDA in manufacturing process and contributes on
its methodological literature. Thus, this study provides a broader un-
derstanding of BDA implications within the manufacturing process by
conceptualizing various concepts related to BDA in manufacturing
process in a holistic and data-driven manner.
Actually, the findings from the systematic literature review can aid
academic researchers to tackle new empirical research in this field and
clear up BDA concepts in the context of manufacturing processes, which
is still in the initial stage. To do so, a review, a classification and a
summary of all relevant paper dealing with BDA permitted to comple-
ment a descriptive and bibliometric analysis. This analysis shows an
exponential growth regarding the number of publications dealing with
BDA in manufacturing process. Considering research trends it was
proved from our analysis that research projects in the field of big data
or industry as well focuses and investigates more and more on the topic
of BDA especially during this last four years which represent 85% of
total founded and selected publications.
In general, the present manuscript permits to foster the heated and
scalable debate of BDA in manufacturing process and contributes to a
deeper understanding of this relevant technology from the systematic
literature review and conceptualization of main capabilities.
Furthermore, this paper regroup the main BDA challenges, faculties and
values related to manufacturing process in a comprehensive way based
on obtained results from our systematic review and based on conducted
trends analysis which will permit researches to better understand BDA
capabilities and opportunities.
In this paper, we made a critical analysis on selected research pro-
jects and we classified them according to each Data Mining and
Analytics categories (descriptive, inquisitive, predictive and pre-
scriptive analytics). Then we identified the different techniques used in
each paper and divided them into two categories (offline technics &
real-online technics). The results of our critical analysis lead us to
identify the main research trends (BDA-enabler architecture, Real-time
data mining approaches, Integrated Human-Data intelligence and
Prescriptive analytics within the manufacturing process). Afterward we
A. Belhadi, et al.
analyzed each identified trends in order to respond to the main BDA
research questions with regard to performance management, produc-
tion control and maintenance in manufacturing processes.
The conducted analysis and conceptualization lead us to gives rise
to a theoretical framework of BDA capabilities, which might contribute
to redirecting the future research in this field. The proposed frame-
works can be a good basis for all researchers that aim to understand the
opportunities of using BDA and its limitations. The framework is
composed of three related layers: The first layers aims to regroup BDA
challenges on fourth distinct categories: quality and process control,
energy and environment efficiency, predictive diagnosis and main-
tenance and safety and risk analysis. The second layer presents the BDA
faculties in a comprehensive way. The main goal from building this
layer is to demonstrate that just some few faculties can represent the
enormous potentials of BDA. This approach will permit researcher to
focuses on these faculties instead of being dispersed by analyzing all
capabilities described in literature. The third layer concern BDA values
and regroup main BDA opportunities into four categories: enhancing
transparency, improving performance, supporting decision-making and
enhancing knowledge. The objective is to offer an overall view on BDA
opportunities based on different aspects and objectives of manu-
facturing industry.
6.2. Practical implications
The present paper yields some interesting insights for practical
implications of using BDA in manufacturing process and offers some
interesting results issued by conducting and analyzing some meaningful
case studies. By mingling the findings of the systematic literature re-
view and analyzed case studies, this paper has attempted to provide
researchers and managers with meaningful knowledge on the for-
mulation and implementation of BDA-enabler approach in the manu-
facturing process environment:
• This study gives a detailed overview of some successful case studies
that may help manufacturing companies to transform into an agile
and fully digitalized smart factories while using BDA as an im-
portant pillar in industry 4.0 for manufacturing process.
• In addition, this study may help manufacturing companies to im-
plement fully IT-enabled BDA architecture to increase their perfor-
mance efficiency, improve production quality, improve main-
tenance management, foster employee engagement and
empowerment, and strengthen safety culture and execution in the
long term.
Furthermore, the case studies carried out are in perfect concord
with the identified BDA research trends. The analysis of these case
studies allowed to leive the main recommendations while using BDA
according to each trend.
On the other hand, the case studies analysis enabled to conclude
that in order to successfully implement BDA in manufacturing context
we must rely on some key transformation levers such as process and
operations automation and the use of digital services and advanced
analytics techniques. This finding represents a huge contribution since
it provides essential recommendations to consider while building fully
BDA capabilities. In addition, companies operating in similar conditions
to that of the case company can benefit from the findings of the cases
studies to design their infrastructure that enable the use of BDA for their
manufacturing process.
7. Conclusion and future works
In contemporary era of Big Data, the utilization of data for manu-
facturing process intelligence takes an increased importance in the path
towards the operational excellence. On the other hand, manufacturing
processes and production tools have experienced whopping evolutions
16
Computers & Industrial Engineering 137 (2019) 106099
over time, boosting swift technological advancement all over the in-
dustry. Therefore, researchers on the topic argued that most companies
admit the prominence of their data for monitoring their manufacturing
process and have supported the use of enhanced analytics and business
intelligence as a top priority in the near future. In this respect, the
present paper has provided a better understanding of how these com-
panies can harness the potential capabilities of Big Data Analytics
(BDA) in their manufacturing processes as a way of boosting the digital
transformation to gain business value. Accordingly, the present study
begins with the identification of most agreed capabilities of BDA in
manufacturing process through the findings of a systematic literature
review to develop a framework of BDA capabilities in manufacturing
process. Afterwards, the research uses multiple case studies to corro-
borate this framework in order to provide a practical way for managers
to disclose the potency of BDA along the interdisciplinary capabilities
identified in the study.
Like any other study, ours has quite a few of limitations that must be
recognized. The first limitation of this study is the selection of papers to
be reviewed. Actually, the restrictions posed during the search process
(e.g. use of specific keywords, specific databases…) may contribute to
left out some high-quality articles on BDA in manufacturing process.
Furthermore, qualitative analysis pursued to conduct the multiple case
studies is another limitation of this study. Indeed, the insights gained
from the case studies are qualitative, which makes it difficult to go
deeper and draw objective conclusions for the capabilities of BDA in
manufacturing process.
Future research may be performed on the following aspects. First,
the evaluation of the impact of BDA capabilities on manufacturing
performance with quantitative analysis method based on primary data
must be carried out using more in-depth empirical studies. Moreover,
BDA-enabler infrastructure must be explored in specific contexts such
as SMEs and service companies. It is worth noting that the research on
BDA in manufacturing process, and the corresponding theoretical study
has just started out, as a result of which there is a lot of work to be done
driven by application requirements and related technologies before the
BDA is successfully built in the manufacturing process.
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