Towards Industry 4.0: A Metaverse-Driven Approach to Smart Factory Process Monitoring using Virtual Reality

This study proposes and conceptually validates an innovative monitoring system for smart factories based on virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse.The novelty lies in integrating immersive VR technologies with real-time data analytics, transforming static monitoring into dynamic, interactive visualization of industrial processes.The system was developed using Unreal Engine 5 as the visualization platform, FlexSim for process simulation, MySQL for data management, and Power BI for KPI dashboards.To ensure seamless integration, database connectors, visualization modules, data-capture tools, and real-time communication plugins were incorporated into the VR