Intelligent infrastructures in a changing environment: innovation and evolution of industry-infrastructure networks

In the past decades the advancement of measurement and control techniques have enabled 'intelligent' on-line control and optimisation of large-scale, complex industry and infrastructure systems. It appears, however, that these techniques predominantly have been developed and employed for systems with fixed boundaries, where system content and structure or system behaviour is relatively well-known or predictable. The continuity because of prosperity of many a company today depends on effective automation and control of single industrial facilities, on the optimisation of industrial complexes and the availability and reliability of responsive, flexible infrastructures for energy, utilities and information. Today, in many an industry ICT severely impacts the business environment and the development and design of novel industrial facilities and complexes. The evolution of industry at regional level increasingly is influenced by infrastructure availability. Modern ICT infra, for example, may enable completely new industrial and infrastructure organisation and design concepts, such as distributed generation and manufacturing. In the paper, a framework is presented for modelling and understanding industry-infrastructure coevolution, and implications for the development, design and use of intelligent infrastructure techniques employed.