From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, 4IR, or Industry 4.0 conceptualizes rapid change to technology, industries, and societal patterns and processes in the 21st century due to increasing interconnectivity and smart automation. Coined popularly by the World Economic Forum Founder and Executive Chairman, Klaus Schwab, it asserts that the changes seen are more than just improvements to efficiency, but express a significant shift in industrial capitalism.
A part of this phase of industrial change is the joining of technologies like artificial intelligence, gene editing, to advanced robotics that blur the lines between the physical, digital, and biological worlds.
Throughout this, fundamental shifts are taking place in how the global production and supply network operates through ongoing automation of traditional manufacturing and industrial practices, using modern smart technology, large-scale machine-to-machine communication (M2M), and the internet of things
(IoT). This integration increasing automation, improving communication
and self-monitoring, and the use of smart machines that can analyze and
diagnose issues without the need for human intervention.
It also represents a social, political, and economic shift from the digital age
of the late 1990s and early 2000s to an era of embedded connectivity
distinguished by the omni-use and commonness of technological use
throughout society (e.g. a metaverse) that changes the ways we experience and know the world around us. That we have created and are entering an augmented social reality compared to just the natural senses and industrial ability of humans alone.
History
The phrase Fourth Industrial Revolution was first introduced by a team of scientists developing a high-tech strategy for the German government. Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum (WEF), introduced the phrase to a wider audience in a 2015 article published by Foreign Affairs. "Mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution" was the 2016 theme of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting, in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland.
On the 10 October, 2016, the Forum announced the opening of its Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in San Francisco. This was also subject and title of Schwab's 2016 book. Schwtab includes in this fourth era technologies that combine hardware, software, and biology (cyber-physical systems),
and emphasizes advances in communication and connectivity. Schwab
expects this era to be marked by breakthroughs in emerging technologies
in fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, quantum computing, biotechnology, the internet of things, the industrial internet of things, decentralized consensus, fifth-generation wireless technologies, 3D printing, and fully autonomous vehicles.
In The Great Reset proposal by the WEF, The Fourth Industrial Revolution is included as a Strategic Intelligence in the solution to rebuild the economy sustainably following the COVID-19 pandemic.
First Industrial Revolution
The First Industrial Revolution
was marked by a transition from hand production methods to machines
through the use of steam power and water power. The implementation of
new technologies took a long time, so the period which this refers to
was between 1760 and 1820, or 1840 in Europe and the United States. Its
effects had consequences on textile manufacturing, which was first to
adopt such changes, as well as iron industry, agriculture, and mining
although it also had societal effects with an ever stronger middle class. It also had an effect on British industry at the time.
Second Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution,
also known as the Technological Revolution, is the period between 1871
and 1914 that resulted from installations of extensive railroad and
telegraph networks, which allowed for faster transfer of people and
ideas, as well as electricity. Increasing electrification allowed for
factories to develop the modern production line. It was a period of
great economic growth, with an increase in productivity, which also
caused a surge in unemployment since many factory workers were replaced
by machines.
Third Industrial Revolution
The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Digital Revolution,
occurred in the late 20th century, after the end of the two world wars,
resulting from a slowdown of industrialization and technological
advancement compared to previous periods. The production of the Z1 computer, which used binary floating-point numbers and Boolean logic,
a decade later, was the beginning of more advanced digital
developments. The next significant development in communication
technologies was the supercomputer,
with extensive use of computer and communication technologies in the
production process; machinery began to abrogate the need for human
power.
Fourth Industrial Revolution
In essence, the Fourth Industrial Revolution is the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), IoT, industrial internet of things, cloud computing, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution marks the beginning of the Imagination Age.
Key themes
Four themes are presented that summarize an Industry 4.0:
- Interconnection — the ability of machines, devices, sensors, and
people to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of
things, or the internet of people (IoP)
- Information transparency — the transparency afforded by Industry 4.0
technology provides operators with comprehensive information to make
decisions. Inter-connectivity allows operators to collect immense
amounts of data and information from all points in the manufacturing
process, identify key areas that can benefit from improvement to
increase functionality
- Technical assistance — the technological facility of systems to
assist humans in decision-making and problem-solving, and the ability to
help humans with difficult or unsafe tasks
- Decentralized decisions — the ability of cyber physical systems to
make decisions on their own and to perform their tasks as autonomously
as possible. Only in the case of exceptions, interference, or
conflicting goals, are tasks delegated to a higher level
Distinctiveness
Proponents
of the Fourth Industrial Revolution suggest it is a distinct revolution
rather than simply a prolongation of the Third Industrial Revolution. This is due to the following characteristics:
- Velocity — exponential speed at which incumbent industries are affected and displaced
- Scope and systems impact - the large amount of sectors and firms that are affected
- Paradigm shift in technology policy — new policies designed for this
new way of doing are present. An example is Singapore's formal
recognition of Industry 4.0 in its innovation policies.
Critics of the concept dismiss Industry 4.0 as a marketing strategy.
They suggest that although revolutionary changes are identifiable in
distinct sectors, there is no systemic changes so far. In addition, the
pace of recognition of Industry 4.0 and policy transition varies across
countries; the definition of Industry 4.0 is not harmonized.
Components
The application of the Fourth Industrial Revolution operates through:
- Mobile devices
- Internet of things (IoT) platforms
- Location detection technologies (electronic identification)
- Advanced human-machine interfaces
- Authentication and fraud detection
- Smart sensors
- Big analytics and advanced processes
- Multilevel customer interaction and customer profiling
- Augmented reality/ wearables
- On-demand availability of computer system resources
- Data visualization and triggered "live" training
Mainly these technologies can be summarized into four major components, defining the term “Industry 4.0” or “smart factory”:
Industry 4.0 networks a wide range of new technologies to create value. Using cyber-physical systems
that monitor physical processes, a virtual copy of the physical world
can be designed. Characteristics of cyber-physical systems include the
ability to make decentralized decisions independently, reaching a high
degree of autonomy.
The value created in Industrie 4.0, can be relied upon electronic
identification, in which the smart manufacturing require set
technologies to be incorporated in the manufacturing process to thus be
classified as in the development path of Industrie 4.0 and no longer
digitisation.
Primary drivers
Digitization and integration of vertical and horizontal value chains
Industry
4.0 integrates processes vertically, across the entire organization,
including processes in product development, manufacturing, structuring,
and service; horizontally, Industry 4.0 includes internal operations
from suppliers to customers as well as all key value chain partners.
Digitization of product and services
Integrating
new methods of data collection and analysis–such as through the
expansion of existing products or creation of new digitized
products–helps companies to generate data on product use in order to
refine products.
Digital business models and customer access
Customer
satisfaction is a perpetual, multi-stage process that requires
modification in real-time to adapt to the changing needs of consumers.
Trends
Smart factory
Smart
Factory is the vision of a production environment in which production
facilities and logistics systems are organized without human
intervention.
The Smart Factory is no longer a vision. While different model
factories represent the feasible, many enterprizes already clarify with
examples practically, how the Smart Factory functions.
The technical foundations on which the Smart Factory - the
intelligent factory - is based are cyber-physical systems that
communicate with each other using the Internet of Things and Services.
An important part of this process is the exchange of data between the
product and the production line. This enables a much more efficient
connection of the Supply Chain and better organisation within any
production environment.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution fosters what has been called a
"smart factory". Within modular structured smart factories,
cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy
of the physical world and make decentralized decisions.
Over the internet of things, cyber-physical systems communicate and
cooperate with each other and with humans in synchronic time both
internally and across organizational services offered and used by
participants of the value chain.
Predictive maintenance
Industry
4.0 can also provide predictive maintenance, due to the use of
technology and the IoT sensors. Predictive maintenance – which can
identify maintenance issues in live – allows machine owners to perform
cost-effective maintenance and determine it ahead of time before the
machinery fails or gets damaged. For example, a company in Los Angeles
could understand if a piece of equipment in Singapore is running at an
abnormal speed or temperature. They could then decide whether or not it
needs to be repaired.
3D printing
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is said to have extensive dependency on 3D printing
technology. Some advantages of 3D printing for industry are that 3D
printing can print many geometric structures, as well as simplify the
product design process. It is also relatively environmentally friendly.
In low-volume production, it can also decrease lead times and total
production costs. Moreover, it can increase flexibility, reduce
warehousing costs and help the company towards the adoption of a mass
customization business strategy. In addition, 3D printing can be very
useful for printing spare parts and installing it locally, therefore
reducing supplier dependence and reducing the supply lead time.
The determining factor is the pace of change. The correlation of
the speed of technological development and, as a result, socio-economic
and infrastructural transformations with human life allow us to state a
qualitative leap in the speed of development, which marks a transition
to a new time era.
Smart sensors
Sensors
and instrumentation drive the central forces of innovation, not only
for Industry 4.0 but also for other “smart” megatrends, such as smart
production, smart mobility, smart homes, smart cities, and smart
factories.
Smart sensors are devices, which generate the data and allow
further functionality from self-monitoring and self-configuration to
condition monitoring of complex processes.
With the capability of wireless communication, they reduce installation
effort to a great extent and help realize a dense array of sensors.
The importance of sensors, measurement science, and smart
evaluation for Industry 4.0 has been recognized and acknowledged by
various experts and has already led to the statement "Industry 4.0:
nothing goes without sensor systems."
However, there are few issues, such as time synchronization
error, data loss, and dealing with large amounts of harvested data,
which all limit the implementation of full-fledged systems. Moreover,
additional limits on these functionalities represents the battery power.
One example of the integration of smart sensors in the electronic
devices, is the case of smart watches, where sensors receive the data
from the movement of the user, process the data and as a result, provide
the user with the information about how many steps they have walked in a
day and also converts the data into calories burned.
Agriculture and Food Industries
Hydroponic Vertical farming
Smart sensors in these two fields are still in the testing stage.
These innovative connected sensors collect, interpret and communicate
the information available in the plots (leaf area, vegetation index,
chlorophyll, hygrometry, temperature, water potential, radiation). Based
on this scientific data, the objective is to enable real-time
monitoring via a smartphone with a range of advice that optimizes plot
management in terms of results, time and costs.
On the farm, these sensors can be used to detect crop stages and
recommend inputs and treatments at the right time. As well as
controlling the level of irrigation.
The food industry requires more and more security and
transparency and full documentation is required. This new technology is
used as a tracking system as well as the collection of human data and
product data.
Accelerated transition to the knowledge economy
Knowledge
economy is an economic system in which production and services are
largely based on knowledge-intensive activities that contribute to an
accelerated pace of technical and scientific advance, as well as rapid
obsolescence.
Industry 4.0 aids transitions into knowledge economy by increasing
reliance on intellectual capabilities than on physical inputs or natural
resources.
Challenges
Challenges in implementation of Industry 4.0:
Economic
- High economic costs
- Business model adaptation
- Unclear economic benefits/excessive investment
Social
- Privacy concerns
- Surveillance and distrust
- General reluctance to change by stakeholders
- Threat of redundancy of the corporate IT department
- Loss of many jobs to automatic processes and IT-controlled processes, especially for blue collar workers
- Increased risk of gender inequalities in professions with job roles most susceptible to replacement with AI
Political
- Lack of regulation, standards and forms of certifications
- Unclear legal issues and data security
Organizational
- IT security issues, which are greatly aggravated by the inherent need to open up previously closed production shops
- Reliability and stability needed for critical machine-to-machine
communication (M2M), including very short and stable latency times
- Need to maintain the integrity of production processes
- Need to avoid any IT snags, as those would cause expensive production outages
- Need to protect industrial know-how (contained also in the control files for the industrial automation gear)
- Lack of adequate skill-sets to expedite the transition towards a fourth industrial revolution
- Low top management commitment
- Insufficient qualification of employees
Country applications
Many countries have set up institutional mechanisms to foster the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies. For example,
Australia
Australia
has a Digital Transformation Agency (est. 2015) and the Prime
Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce (est. 2016), which promotes
collaboration with industry groups in Germany and the USA.
Germany
The term "Industrie 4.0", shortened to I4.0 or simply I4, originated in 2011 from a project in the high-tech strategy of the German government and specifically relates to that project policy, rather than a wider notion of a Fourth Industrial Revolution of 4IR. which promotes the computerization of manufacturing. The term "Industrie 4.0" was publicly introduced in the same year at the Hannover Fair. Renowned German professor Wolfgang Wahlster is sometimes called the inventor of the "Industry 4.0" term.
In October 2012, the Working Group on Industry 4.0 presented a set of
Industry 4.0 implementation recommendations to the German federal
government. The workgroup members and partners are recognized as the
founding fathers and driving force behind Industry 4.0. On 8 April 2013
at the Hannover Fair, the final report of the Working Group Industry 4.0
was presented. This working group was headed by Siegfried Dais, of Robert Bosch GmbH, and Henning Kagermann, of the German Academy of Science and Engineering.
As Industry 4.0 principles have been applied by companies, they
have sometimes been rebranded. For example, the aerospace parts
manufacturer Meggitt PLC has branded its own Industry 4.0 research project M4.
The discussion of how the shift to Industry 4.0, especially digitization, will affect the labour market is being discussed in Germany under the topic of Work 4.0.
The characteristics of the German government's Industry 4.0
strategy involve the strong customization of products under the
conditions of highly flexible (mass-) production. The required automation technology is improved by the introduction of methods of self-optimization, self-configuration, self-diagnosis, cognition and intelligent support of workers in their increasingly complex work. The largest project in Industry 4.0 as of July 2013 is the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research
(BMBF) leading-edge cluster "Intelligent Technical Systems
Ostwestfalen-Lippe (its OWL)". Another major project is the BMBF project
RES-COM, as well as the Cluster of Excellence "Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries". In 2015, the European Commission started the international Horizon 2020 research project CREMA (Providing Cloud-based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing based on the XaaS and Cloud model) as a major initiative to foster the Industry 4.0 topic.
Indonesia
Another example is Making Indonesia 4.0, with a focus on improving industrial performance.
South Africa
South
Africa appointed a Presidential Commission on the Fourth Industrial
Revolution in 2019, consisting of about 30 stakeholders with a
background in academia, industry and government. South Africa has also established an Interministerial Committee on Industry 4.0.
South Korea
The
Republic of Korea has had a Presidential Committee on the Fourth
Industrial Revolution since 2017. The Republic of Korea’s I-Korea
strategy (2017) is focusing on new growth engines that include AI,
drones and autonomous cars, in line with the government’s
innovation-driven economic policy.
Uganda
Uganda
adopted its own National 4IR Strategy in October 2020 with emphasis on
e-governance, urban management (smart cities), health care, education,
agriculture and the digital economy; to support local businesses, the
government was contemplating introducing a local start-ups bill in 2020
which would require all accounting officers to exhaust the local market
prior to procuring digital solutions from abroad.
United Kingdom
In a policy paper published in 2019, the UK's Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy,
titled "Regulation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution", outlined the
need to evolve current regulatory models to remain competitive in
evolving technological and social settings.
Industry applications
The
aerospace industry has sometimes been characterized as "too low volume
for extensive automation"; however, Industry 4.0 principles have been
investigated by several aerospace companies, and technologies have been
developed to improve productivity where the upfront cost of automation
cannot be justified. One example of this is the aerospace parts
manufacturer Meggitt PLC's project, M4.
The increasing use of the Industrial Internet of Things is referred to as Industry 4.0 at Bosch, and generally in Germany.
Applications include machines that can predict failures and trigger
maintenance processes autonomously or self-organized coordination that
react to unexpected changes in production.
Industry 4.0 inspired Innovation 4.0, a move toward digitization for academia and research and development. In 2017, the £81M Materials Innovation Factory (MIF) at the University of Liverpool opened as a center for computer aided materials science, where robotic formulation, data capture and modeling are being integrated into development practices.
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