Industry 4.0
Well Folks,
Industry 4.0 is the FUTURE!!
This will change the way many businesses function today. We will witness a tremendous shift in the economic model that had been followed till date. It will be more focused not just on business growth, but in the well being of the entire human race. Many industries will go through a transformation phase of their business strategies starting from agriculture to education to manufacturing to health care to transportation. The ability of digital technology to change outcomes and empower people all over the world to create more equitable growth thus enhancing the living standards of people is going to create a better lifestyle and create opportunities for new business models to emerge. The value chains will be more efficient thus increasing productivity.
Industry 4.0 is characterized by a range of new technologies that are fusing the physical, digital, and biological worlds, impacting all disciplines, economies, and industries, and even challenging ideas about what it means to be human. Industry 4.0 offers a more comprehensive, interlinked, and holistic approach to manufacturing. It connects physical with digital and allows for better collaboration and access across departments, partners, vendors, products, and people.
The term Industry 4.0 was coined by the BMBF in Germany (Federal Ministry of Education and Research), which was a project by the German government to focus on the digitization of the manufacturing industry. This term was made public at the Hannover Messe Industrie (HMI Fair) in 2011.
The Industrial Revolution Timeline (Fig.1) gives an idea about how each industrial revolution has provided significant breakthroughs for different industries and opened doors to new business arenas. The 4th industrial revolution had just begun and many economies are at the forefront to yield the fruits of Industry 4.0. Developed economies like the United Kingdom, Japan, and United States had leveraged the benefits of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd industrial revolutions thus creating a highly industrialized nation with a GDP growth rate that had outgrown other nations. And now, the 4th industrial revolution gives power to numerous countries all over the world for experiencing massive growth by digitizing their economy. Developing countries like India stand at the forefront to actively develop their economy into a more digitized and powerful economy.
Fig 1: Industrial Revolution Timeline
Industry 4.0 is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres collectively referred to as cyber-physical systems. It is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the Internet of Things, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), decentralized consensus, fifth-generation wireless technologies (5G), additive manufacturing/3D printing and fully autonomous vehicles.
The below Tools are the important building blocks of any Industry 4.0 business platform:
- Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): Business process management tools that can be used to manage information across an organization.
- IoT: IoT stands for Internet of Things, a concept that refers to connections between physical objects like sensors or machines and the Internet.
- IIoT: IIoT stands for the Industrial Internet of Things, a concept that refers to the connections between people, data, and machines as they relate to manufacturing.
- Big data: Big data refers to large sets of structured or unstructured data that can be compiled, stored, organized, and analyzed to reveal patterns, trends, associations, and opportunities.
- Artificial intelligence (AI): Artificial intelligence is a concept that refers to a computer’s ability to perform tasks and make decisions that would historically require some level of human intelligence.
- M2M: This stands for machine-to-machine, and refers to the communication that happens between two separate machines through wireless or wired networks.
- Digitization: Digitization refers to the process of collecting and converting different types of information into a digital format.
- Smart factory: A smart factory is one that invests in and leverages Industry 4.0 technology, solutions, and approaches.
- Machine learning: Machine learning refers to the ability that computers have to learn and improve on their own through artificial intelligence—without being explicitly told or programmed to do so.
- Cloud computing: Cloud computing refers to the practice of using interconnected remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process information.
- Real-time data processing: Real-time data processing refers to the abilities of computer systems and machines to continuously and automatically process data and provide real-time or near-time outputs and insights.
- Ecosystem: An ecosystem, in terms of manufacturing, refers to the potential connectedness of your entire operation—inventory and planning, financials, customer relationships, supply chain management, and manufacturing execution.
- Cyber-physical systems (CPS) & Data Analytics: Cyber-physical systems, also sometimes known as cyber manufacturing, refers to an Industry 4.0-enabled manufacturing environment that offers real-time data collection, analysis, and transparency across every aspect of a manufacturing operation. Data Analytics will provide the platform to evaluate huge data and provide huge insights on proving predictive measures to boost business revenues.
It was during the World Economic Forum meet in 2016 that the importance of Industry 4.0 was discussed with world leaders in detail
A recent survey done by the Business Development Bank of Canada reveals a very interesting fact on how much companies are embracing Industry 4.0 to achieve more operational benefits.
Fig 1: Survey by Business Development Bank of Canada
Hence, Industry 4.0 will make it possible to gather and analyze data across machines, enabling faster, more flexible, and more efficient processes to produce higher-quality goods at reduced costs. This manufacturing revolution will increase productivity, shift economics, foster industrial growth, and modify the profile of the workforce—ultimately changing the competitiveness of companies and regions.
The following videos from World Economic Forum gives us a Bird's eye view of Industry 4.0:
The FUTURE is HERE!! But Are We Ready For It? >>>>>
An interesting topic that all youngsters should dig into...great work Nikhil
ReplyDeleteHi Nikhil, Just went through your blog, quite interesting as well very much related to current industrial environment and how it is going to progress in near future. Industrial revolution 4. Which is expected to bring in lot of new technological revolution etc. Here we all need to accept the fact that every revolution has brought technical changes which were not heard of or thought of, and that's why these phase changes have been termed as revolution. We also have note that these revolution s started in Western counties specially in Europe and USA. And that why these countries are most benefited . Countries line Japan moulded themself for the change hence we're benefitted. More over the political system for there also played a major role. Same was not the case in many third world counties and still the situation remains the same. Looking at these I am not sure how much benefit we will able to get. We will require strong leadership yo implement the policies. Today I see this kind of will in current Indian leadership. Now it is to be seen how far this rejime takes us or we allow them to them to take us ahead. I also see major negative impact of this on small scale industies as they will not able invest in the latest technology. Where as large MNCs who can afford these can uproot small scale or even medium scale industies. Here I see lots of threat to local industies. Here govt needs to play vary vital role in balancing the local vs MNC . I as a person is very much in favor of bring up these modern infrastructure which will improve the quality and quantity. This will have very positive impact in long run. Care to taken to balance it out.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot Sir for your valuable input. It's the encouragement that seniors and visionaries like you in the industry provide that guide us in the right direction that gets us more interested into the upcoming trends of the industry. I shall try my best to inclucate these eye opening insights into my future articles.
DeleteNice Post
ReplyDeleteYou provide good information and keep updating. We also have some information.
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