Metadesign survey and vision for Industry 5.0 production systems

The industrial landscape has evolved through multiple revolutions, each shaping design engineering (DE) practices. DE 1.0 focused on cost reduction, DE 2.0 aimed at scaling production, DE 3.0 emphasised integrating design with manufacturing, and DE 4.0 pursued enhanced production efficiency in alignment with Industry 4.0. Industry 5.0, however, marks a shift towards a human-centric approach that balances human and societal needs with environmental sustainability and industrial resilience. This transition introduces DE 5.0, closely linked to the emerging concept of metadesign – whose conceptual roots trace back to the late Industry 3.0 era and developed further during Industry 4.0. Metadesign redefines traditional systems design by enabling collaborative processes in which users become active designers, expressing creativity through meaningful engagement. Within the context of Industry 5.0, metadesign is poised to fully flourish, particularly as it integrates into the industrial metaverse. This paper surveys the evolution of DE across industrial revolutions leading to Industry 5.0, proposes a metadesign framework for product design and production systems, outlines key enabling technologies along with a case study, and discusses limitations, biases, and challenges for metadesign in Industry 5.0, as well as the contributions, implications, and future research directions of this study.