Fine-Grained Access Control with User Revocation in Smart Manufacturing

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear all,
The following should be improved:

1. There are four layers specified (Shop Floor; Manufacturing zone; Enterprise; Public Internet), but there is no explanation of what PL0, PL1, PL2, PL3, PL4 and PL5 are. A representation of their meaning needs to be included.

2. Also, it is not clear how the abbreviation PL is used at all since it appears after the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture level (PL), i.e. short of Purdue level?

3. In addition to a table of notations, I suggest that authors include a table of abbreviations, as it will make the text easier to read.

4. In Figure 1. High-level scheme of factory scenario, in the uppermost part Public Internet, it is appropriate to exchange the places of Distribution and Suppliers, thus maintaining the necessary logical sequence.

Author Response

Please see the attachment. 

Notice that you can find the PDF of the Manuscript with all changes highlighted in red as "Non-published Material".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Please see the attached file for the review. 

 

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Make sure to review the paper for flow and grammatical errors.

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Notice that you can find the PDF of the Manuscript with all changes highlighted in red as "Non-published Material".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper represents a high level work, with appropriate literature review with up-to-date references. Please consider the following remarks:

1) Line 284: Please provide appropriate references for Hyperledger Fabric 1.4.

2) The high-level proposed scheme of Figure 2 is well described and analysed.

3) Are there references for equations 1, 2, 3, 4? If yes please provide them.

4) Line 508: Please change the word ram to capital letters.

5) Line 708: Please change the word ieee to capital letters.

6) Section 7.3: The different requirements can be put in a table; it would be easier for the reader to follow.

7) At Table 2 the authors show the superiority of the security proposed solution compared to published literature. It would be desirable the authors to do the same at conclusions section and show at a table the superiority of the overall proposed approach compared to published literature. 

English language at the paper is at a very good level.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Notice that you can find the PDF of the Manuscript with all changes highlighted in red as "Non-published Material".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The following major issues should be addressed:

1. In the section of introduction , the background knowledge of Industry 4.0-based smart manufacturing with access control and related works are not sufficiently discussed.

2. The novelty and contributions of your paper are not new and insufficient. More text should be added to demonstrate the novelty of your paper. 

3. It is better to provide the proposed scheme in the tabular/figure form. Adding more smart-visuals can make the article more attractive.

4. In the section of security analysis and performance evaluation need to be more detailed.

I think the quality of this paper must be substantially improved. In current form, it is not suitable for publication in Electronics.

Moderate editing of English language required

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Notice that you can find the PDF of the Manuscript with all changes highlighted in red as "Non-published Material".

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for carefully reviewing and revising the manuscript according to the comments and suggestions. I am pleased to inform the authors that the paper has significantly improved, and I am satisfied with the changes.

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors have enhanced the contents of their manuscript and they have satisfactorily addressed all my comments! 

I think that the paper can be now accepted for publication in Electronics.