An Ontology-Based Ethical Framework for Green Digifacturing in the South African Energy Sector: A Case Study of Eskom

Ethical considerations align global and massive digital changes with moral and responsible values in industrial settings. This study investigates an ontology-based ethical framework for green and digital manufacturing in the South African energy sector. This study uses business ethics ontology (BEO) as enterprise ontology for knowledge acquisition using classes, concepts, entities and relationships in the manufacturing ecosystem using the case study of the Eskom energy company. The Protégé platform supports knowledge representation enabling the ethical framework design. The BEO revealed that modern manufacturing companies apply sustainability practices, are responsible, comply with regulations and laws, apply transparency with ethical reporting, follow business integrity through clear policies and stakeholder involvement and apply fair business and labour practices. Findings revealed that digital communication between all agents such as raw materials, processes, operators, products, machines, network connectivity, robotics, applications, cloud systems, sensors and data analytics in the digifacturing processes enables interoperability and real-time adaptability between hardware and software. The proposed ethical framework depicts that applying ethical practices in green and digital manufacturing processes lead to production increase, global positioning, value creation and inclusive growth following ethical monitoring and control. The SA government and regulatory bodies should upgrade digital infrastructure and ethical-driven manufacturing policies while establishing penalties and incentives for manufacturing ethics adoption.