Topic: Towards Industry 5.0 & Society 5.0: Creating a More Sustainable Human-Centric Smart Manufacturing Landscape

Manufacturing and Production Industries and Networks are currently being reshaped in order to integrate advanced information and communication technologies (ICT) in the existing workplaces. Concretely, Industry 4.0 revolves around connectivity through cyber-physical systems (CPS) to realize machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. In a complimentary way, Industry 5.0 will focus on strengthening the communication, collaboration, and co-existence between humans and machines, also known as human-machine-interface (HMI). Therefore, Industry 5.0 is a value-driven approach based on three interconnected core pillars, namely, human-centricity, sustainability, and resilience. Particularly, it is necessary for Industry 5.0 to further implement human-centric technologies in Society 5.0 on the basis of technological progress and foundation laid by Industry 4.0. Society 5.0 will mark the dawn of a new era in human history with the radical shift from a technology-driven to a human-centered societal and business model. This new social structure is an ideal representation of the desired future intelligent society, in which everyone can access personalized services and live a comfortable, vigorous life. Consequently, Society 5.0 should be developed on the values of openness, sustainability, and inclusiveness. Furthermore, achieving sustainable development is a key goal of modern times, with a particular focus on the sustainable development goals (SDGs) adopted by the United Nations. Therefore, authors are invited to contribute their innovative research works to this Special Issue to highlight the research implications in areas relevant to the upcoming Industry 5.0, Society 5.0 and beyond.