A human-cyber-physical system framework for steel structure manufacturing management towards Industry 5.0

Steel structure manufacturing (SSM) follows a fully customised and parallel production mode for multiple orders. Due to highly personalised order demands, frequent changes, and tight delivery cycles, the manufacturing system faces requirements for rapid response and resilience. Meanwhile, the manufacturing process suffers from information opacity and weak management caused by unstandardised human-cyber system interactions. To enhance management and resilience, this paper proposes an implementation method of a Steel Structure Human-Cyber-Physical System (SS-HCPS) framework towards Industry 5.0 (I5.0). First, the roles and tasks of humans in the I5.0 SSM factory are clarified, and digital twin (DT) is applied to achieve human-machine collaboration (HMC) decision making, production, and optimisation. A three-level plan data model and the corresponding management system architecture are constructed; an HMC paradigm is designed for the agile conversion of orders into production plans. Furthermore, a multi-level HMC adjustment mechanism is developed to effectively address production anomalies. A case study of a smart steel factory transformation demonstrates applications including DT-based basic HMC management, HMC order conversion, production traceability with completion time prediction, and typical production adjustment scenarios. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is discussed and validated by multiple performance indicators.