Let us start with a brief overview of the industrial revolutions, with the first powered up by the use of steam, the second – by electricity and mass production, and the third – by the introduction of computers; and to come to nowadays, entering the fourth industrial revolution, with automation and digitalisation in heart, where technologies such as Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, Cognitive Computing, Machine Learning and even Blockchain, facilitate the transformation of manufacturing to create the smarter factories and services of the future.
The name Industry 4.0 (originally Industrie 4.0 in German) was first coined in 2011 as part of the German Federal Government’s High Tech Strategy for a digitalised manufacturing where machines and products network digitally together, and presented to the broad public for the first time at Germany’s most important industrial fair, the Hannover Messe, when the reference architecture model was launched.
In October 2012 the Working Group on Industry 4.0, consisting of industry leaders and academics, presented a set of Industry 4.0 implementation recommendations to the German Government, defining the term and its scope as: “Industry 4.0 represents the coming fourth industrial revolution on the way to an Internet of Things, Data and Services. Decentralised intelligence helps create intelligent object networking and independent process management, with the interaction of the real and virtual worlds representing a crucial new aspect of the manufacturing and production process.”
Five years after its initial definition, the term, originally only used for manufacturing and the scope of a smart factory with smart products, smart machines and smart planners, developed a far-reaching implementation to today move to concepts such as smart cars, smart buildings, smart healthcare and even smart cities, and to a wild discussion on the pros and cons of the new industrial revolution.
The main benefits are broadly stipulated as cheaper workforce, presuming the numbers of humans swapped by robots; reduced costs and higher productivity (robots can run 24/7) and better quality; boosted processes and efficiency; product diversification, innovation, and customer satisfaction; reduced risk and greater work safety; improved sustainability; fast solutions to complex problems and disruptions.
With some of the main challenges named as the high initial investment, along with the outgoing maintenance costs; the issue with data security, cyber attacks and industrial espionage; and the limited availability of skilled employees with relevant expertise for the innovative business opportunities offered by industry 4.0.
Furthermore, the fourth industrial revolution might reverse the trend of production relocation to undeveloped economies and see the opening of more production locations in Europe and North America, which could be both viewed from its positive and negative aspects for the global economic and social growth.
And while the debate about what Industry 4.0 actually is and what its pros and cons are is getting broader and broader, the question is not whether the fourth industrial revolution is coming, but how quickly and what it means for each individual company and how businesses should transform to adequately answer the challenges and find solutions for the digital transformation.
Industry 4.0 has the capacity to take manufacturing and services into a whole new era of competitiveness, where automatisation comes hand in hand with customisation and customer-tailored solutions, and see businesses switching from the ’push into the market’ attempts to take their products to the customers to costumer-specific solutions based on individualised needs (’pull from the customer’).
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