In the global manufacturing, the next industrial revolution comes in its 4th phase. It is based on the integrated production system, which results in the transformation of smart manufacturing factories and fulfilling of dynamic customer demands by combining human creativity and automation.
Industry 4.0 has a vast reality, which includes transformation and integration of manufacturing industries into an environment framework consisting of peoples, processes, systems, data and other industrial assets with collaboration with industrial creativity and innovation (Moore, 2018). Industry 4.0 is a broad vision, which combines industrial assets with the digital technologies in so-called cyber-physical systems.
Considering the initiatives and evolution of Industry 4.0, there is a continuously rising in the organizations and the countries where the industries adopting Industry 4.0. Examples include the China (where the Industry 4.0 lies in the foundation of ‘Made in China 2025’), UK (Industry 4.0 and 4th revolution by the EEF), Japan (collaboration took around with Japan’s Robot Revolution Initiative) and various other initiatives (Hurley, 2018). This shows that all of them are accepting and leveraging the Industry 4.0 concept in spite of their dissimilar names. This global expansion of Industry 4.0 is not evolving from the government initiatives or agreements but this is expanding due to the increase in the industrial focus on this concept.
The backbone of the Industry 4.0 constitutes nine enabling technologies and many of the companies have already implemented these technologies by making interconnected autonomous systems, which can communicate freely with each other (Posada, et al., 2015). For maintaining a competitive advantage in the industry 4.0, every company needs a clear understanding of these nine technological advancements and the benefits, which can be gained after implementation.
Industry 4.0 will allow companies and manufacturers to bypass various current structural constraints and convert it into value production. In addition, the new emerging technologies are on the way, which will be integrated into the business and increase the efficiency and effectiveness in the management decision area. Some of these new technological trends are Artificial Intelligence, Quantum computing and blockchain technology (Skilton & Hovsepian, 2017).
Since the starting of the industrial revolution, the technological advancement always helps the organization in achieving greater productivity. It converts the traditional approach of manufacturing and promotes better collaboration between the suppliers, producers and customers by integrating them all in the framework of automation under the industrial environment.
After coming of Industrial 4.0 revolution, the key objectives of every organization is to the more efficient manufacturing process and using the customer-centric approach with optimization of generating new business opportunities and models (Xu, Xu, & Li, 2018). These disruptive technologies change the way whole organization works to deliver product or service to the customers.
The nine smart enabling technologies under industry 4.0 are used by many companies. Many of the organizations started implementing these technologies and using them either in interconnected autonomous systems or in isolation.
Firms are exploiting the Industry 4.0 technologies by using the various mechanism and tools. These are described as below –
a. Big Data – In the industrial environment, this platform brings numerous insights with the help of collective data from various multiple sources. This is because due to the availability of massive sets of untapped data in the whole industrial world which can provide various valuable information to the companies which can make them optimizes the quality of the products and reducing the costs of production (Wang, Gunasekaran, Ngai, & Papadopoulos, 2016). The data is needed to be extracted so that to discover various trends and patterns, which can bring the light on the relationship between the input, process and outputs in the industrial value chain and thus shows the ways of improvements.
Big data is very useful in the predictive manufacturing and help the manufacturer in improving their efficiency in production and thus maintain a competitive edge. A company can use big data in improving the whole value chain, which subsequently optimizes product, and pricing strategies. It can also help the business in improving the other aspects of the whole value chain like gathering and integrating all the data relevant to the operational process and lowering the number of defects and thus improve product quality. It also helps in the real-time decision-making by collecting the data from several sources like management information system (Zhong, Newman, Huang, & Lan, 2016).
b. Cyber Security – The data related to customer and product are highly valuable for any organization and the manufacturers will always like to choose a best possible way to secure their important data. The cybersecurity is necessary for any organization that has access to machines and has interconnected networks as with rising in Industry 4.0, the cyber threat also rises. Cybersecurity helps the organization by protecting their valuable data from being accessed or exploited by the other un-necessary party. Investment in cybersecurity is essential due to the using of new updated technologies like cloud computing and IOT (Solms & Niekerk, 2013).
The cybersecurity solutions are always based on the IT-centric devices and here the challenge is to embed these securities into IoT devices, which are already redesigned under Industry 4.0. Hence, an effective cybersecurity will be the combination of the traditional network security and the latest embedded security in the IoT devices, which can help the organization by giving protection from cyber-threats and cyber-attacks.
Cybersecurity should become an integral part of the management planning process which includes strategy, operations and design as it will be too late if its addresses at the end of the strategic plan.
c. Augmented Reality – It is the new surface technology under Industry 4.0, which can switch up the real-life environment into the digital interface by putting virtual objects in real-time. This technology enriches physical objects with virtual information and thus adds value to the real world. Between 2015 and 2016, there is a huge investment done in AR and VR (Peddie, 2017).
In the business, sometimes-operational costs are heavily increased due to the use of inefficient production methods and human error and thus AR help in finding these issues by integrating both physical and virtual world. This helps the management in getting real-time information, which aids to better decision making and planning.
Various AR devices have cameras and motion sensors, which integrate information and display images into the real world helps the management doing the better adjustment (Bonasio, 2018).
With the help of AR, the organization can make the customer experience the product virtually by emphasizing on design, function without framing the physical copy, and then take feedback from the customers, so that they can implement the change in the real versions.
d. Additive manufacturing – This technique helps the organization in constructing complex and large structures like housing, in less than a day. It is also known by the 3D printing, which creates three-dimensional objects based on the digital models. In the process, custom plastics and organic compounds can be utilized with the help of innovation (Stock & Seliger, 2016).
This technique encompasses various technologies like RP, Direct manufacturing and additive fabrication. Additive manufacturing makes the prototyping very much simple and helps the business firm in meeting their diverse needs through modification approach. It helps the organization in making efficient and effective manufacturing practices by cutting down the waste due to the overproduction.
e. System Integration – In today’s global IT system, most of the companies are not using fully integrated IT system. It means customers, companies and suppliers are not closely linked and neither the department of the same organization such as marketing, production and engineering. System integration technology helps the firm to connect their departments, functions and capabilities, which brings benefits to the internal aspect of the organization.
This platform integration occurs in both industry value chain and the firm multiple value chain. This industrial vertical integration links the business process, ICT system and field layer whereas process, data and companies are linked under multiple value chain.
This Industry 4.0 technology will help different computer and monitors systems to be linked together. This is beneficial for those organizations that have machinery across the factory and can be linked across the production line so that to make operations efficient and smooth (Gilchrist, 2016).
As per a survey, in 2020 – smart enabled appliance and sensors will be everywhere managed in both M2H (machine and human) and M2M (machine and machine) and this shows the potential in allowing deep integration in the whole industrial environment.
f. Virtual Reality – This technology came in to buzz from some previous years, which convert the real-time data or physical world into virtual form. It is a kind of digital experience and the recent changes in the VR technology are the production of cheap VR headsets, which reached to all the people (Suchi, 2018). Using virtual reality has several benefits mainly in the factory or plant operations. The operators can provide safer training with the help of VR, which can prevent the risk to work in a dangerous environment.
With the help of virtual reality technology, users can control all the elements of their 3D factories with remote collaborative support. This will help in the manufacturing process by interactive visualization of industrial facilities to obtain the necessary information and provide solutions to the problems without interrupting production.
The public generally perceives VR for the gaming purpose but in reality, it is more than that. The developers and designers can use this technology for checking accuracy and optimize the communication with the customers so that this will all help in the development of the effective product. Process simulations are also used by the organization in identifying blockages, raising efficiency and mitigating the risks.
Autonomous Robots – Under Industry 4.0, the robots are more flexible, cooperative and autonomous. Previously, they were only used for doing the complex tasks in the industry but now they are interacting, understanding with one another, and work along with the human. The robots are helping the organization by the saving if huge costs and due to their greater capabilities, the task is accomplished more efficiently (Pfeiffer, 2016).
These autonomous robots improve the accuracy of the normal routine assignments by reducing both time and efforts. For example, robots, which are working autonomously, can perform a checkup on inbound goods and deliver real-time records to suppliers. Here, efficiency will be raised as the expected mistakes can be reduced.
As technology provide and allocate a cost-effective way of doing a task, robotics will help in performing dull, dirty and dangerous tasks which allows human to retain their energies in other value-added activities (Oswald & Kleinemeier, 2016).
g. Cloud Computing – Cloud computing has changed the traditional way of storing the data into the hard drives as due to rapid change in technology and the market competitiveness and now with the help of cloud computing, data can easily be stored and accessed from anywhere in the world through the help of internet. It is beneficial for those organizations who have different branched around the globe (Wang, Ranjan, & Chen, 2017). This technology is now integrated with other Industry 4.0 smart enabling technologies like AI and automation and changes the way of the whole industry with its holistic approach.
Before cloud computing, many companies are also used cloud-based and analytical software but now due to the increased of data sharing among company boundaries, the need of cloud computing increases as it offers a unique network of remote servers with the managed and process data.
Cloud computing is now known to be one of the faster and cheaper technologies of Industry 4.0 and with the integration of machine learning techniques, it helps the organization with its predictive analysis like when the failure is likely to happen in the given model with the help of historical machine data and environmental factors (Paige, 2017). Various vendors have now started to offer cloud-based solutions due to its increase in popularity with its benefits.
h. Internet of Thing (IoT) – A local intelligence device which creates a network for facilitating the communication between the machines, applications and systems and letting them task to the user. It integrates sensor data, machine learning, big data technology and various automation technologies (Saarikko, Westergren, & Blomquist, 2017). These connected machines have the ability to collect and process large sets of data with more consistency and accuracy.
In today’s world, only certain manufacturer sensors and machines are integrated with networks and make use of embedded computing. They have limited automation and intelligence in the process control system. Internet of Things (IoT) gained prominence as of the availability of internet of both, wireless and wired.
In the today market economy, IoT has a potential to lead smart firms in improving the efficiency of the production process. For example, in production facilities, products are identified via radio frequency identification codes, which help the firm to perform various specific operations (Greengard, 2015). By embedding the devices with IoT algorithm, sometimes-unfinished goods are also enriched via standard technologies. It helps the organization in getting a real-time response by decentralizing analytics and decision-making.
The 4th Industrial revolution had changed the way of using the various technologies in the industries. In 2013, the approach of Industry 4.0 was officially presented with the Cyber-Physical System (The age of CPS). With this technology, it was now uncomplicated to integrate the physical components with computational algorithms. Industry 4.0 refines the industries boundaries with its various possibilities like flexible production, optimization of logistics, customer-oriented solutions and efficient use of data.
The major impact of adopting technological advances is the explosion of digital ecosystem which offers better ways for leveraging the beneficial information so that to unlock the potential values (Newman, 2017). The advent of new technology has also increased the demand for employees with higher competencies mainly in software development and IT technologies. The introduction of new technologies also change the behaviour of consumers in terms of the expectations and this brings great innovative opportunities to business especially for small-scale firms. In addition, it creates opportunities for the various companies to have a strategic investment that will enrich the products, process and technologies.
Conclusion
In this report, the fourth industrial revolution called Industry 4.0 highlight the paradigm shift that is going into manufacturing industries and manufacturing research. With the integration of a wide network of technologies and increased automation, the goals are now multiple and diverse. These are based on sustainability, quality and efficiency improvements in the main.
Digitalizing production is gaining a new level of quality with the global networking access and through the adoption of technologies like IoT, Cloud computing and VR. Implementing Industry 4.0 is a complex project and IT security with data protection plays a central role but with the support of the legal framework, it can be a boost.
Several technologies and developments were presented and it can be expected that the rapid development in technologies is coming in the near future. Some future identified technologies taking leads are Artificial Intelligence (AI), Quantum computing and Blockchain technology.
It can also hope that the concepts discussed in this paper will spark new ideas in the effort to realize the much-anticipated Fourth Industrial Revolution.
References
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