FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
INDUSTRY 4.0 IS UPON US!
Gloria Spittel takes stock of the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution
Since the First Industrial Revolution when factory production began restructuring daily lives, manufacturing has benefitted from the pursuit of technological advancement, mechanisation and production in increased quantities for over a century.
The world has moved from mechanical to electrical, and from analogue to digital, over the span of the First, Second and Third Industrial Revolutions.
For instance, the Second Industrial Revolution’s use of electricity and assembly line manufacturing led to mass production. And socio-economically, it resulted in increased affordability of items produced in large batches. Operating within a drastically changing socio-political and economic environment, production methods and work processes including psychological phenomena such as the Hawthorne effect materialised.
Suddenly, manufacturing found itself operating in the Third Industrial Revolution, which was characterised by automation, digitisation and even robotics that came to replace human labour.
Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution is taking hold of manufacturing gradually across the world. Envisioned by the German government in a high-tech strategy document in 2013, the aim of Industry 4.0 is the full automation of manufacturing.
Apart from mass customisation – a feature of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – Industry 4.0 combines digital technologies, communication networks, robotics, artificial intelligence and reduced human input in manufacturing processes – which could well be the defining characteristic of this era.
A key component of Industry 4.0 systems is the Internet of Things (IoT) – devices that are connected through a network (usually the internet) that enables the sending and receiving of data. What makes IoT fascinating are the endless possibilities for both work and play through the empowering of everyday devices into cyber-physical networked systems consisting of devices embedded with computers to monitor and control physical processes through a feedback loop.
Other characteristics of Industry 4.0 include the presence of cyber-physical systems with the ability to collect and transmit data, a secure network on which to ‘communicate,’ and the ability to analyse big data and make autonomous decisions. One system that has these characteristics is said to be a ‘smart factory.’ Unlike many devices, processes and systems that misguidedly use the word ‘smart’ to describe everything, the smart factory lives up to its name at least by definition.
The advantages of Industry 4.0 include operating in unsafe or hazardous environments or products without the assistance of humans, thereby removing the risks associated with the loss of human life while improving the health and safety of workers in dangerous environments.
Systems and factories operating in an Industry 4.0 environment will produce more in a shorter timeframe while working longer hours or around the clock, which is an advantage for time-sensitive industries such as shipping and freight. The ability to analyse large chunks of data that will assist organisations in decision-making is also an advantage.
Another plus point is the ability of businesses to manufacture to meet specific customer requirements, leading to the efficient mass customisation of products in batches as inexpensively as those that were mass manufactured in the 20th century.
Mass customisation could also take the form of large and complex updates of products that are similar to software updates, and range from simple cosmetic changes to the development of a completely new product.
However, as with all newly introduced systems and processes, there are inherent challenges and looming drawbacks of the Industry 4.0 era.
Firstly, although touted as globally applicable, it is difficult to imagine that emerging economies or developing nations would have the heavy infrastructure and trained manpower necessary for Industry 4.0 without substantial investments.
Regardless of the benefits of Industry 4.0 like the quick turnaround of production that increases competitiveness, investing in the required infrastructure would divert scarce funds from public expenditure such as healthcare and poverty alleviation programmes, causing socio-political issues in developing nations.
Striking a balance between infrastructure investment for Industry 4.0 and public expenditure is the first challenge for a developing nation. If this is not resolved, Industry 4.0 could shift work away from labour-intensive factory jobs in developing nations and further reduce competitiveness while increasing the wealth gap.
Secondly, a part of the infrastructure that’s required involves secure networks. This is an absolute necessity to prevent unauthorised access to production systems, industrial espionage or sabotage through hacking.
Among the other challenges and drawbacks, full automation of processes in factories in general is a worrying characteristic of Industry 4.0. The replacement of human labour for greater efficiency and more rapid production while desirable in certain industries could also lead to large-scale unemployment.
However, as with previous Industrial Revolutions, there is no stopping the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and there may not be sufficient cause to do so either.
What’s required is preparation for the influx of machines and restructuring of human labour.
The IR version 4 has many advantages in an advanced setting.
In a highly complex manufacturing environment, a human may be able to detect a 0.01 variation. However feedback loop enabled computers and network systems are capable of detecting a 0.0001 error, which is typically not visible to the human mind and naked eye.
Identifying the small yet subtle error facilitates possible corrective action before the process reaches the next phase of manufacturing. Thereby, many quality control costs and quality checks that are linked to product failures can be minimised. Thus, any possibilities of the final product getting impaired can be kept at bay.
Another plus point is that human fatigue is not a bottleneck in IR 4 version. So there are no worries about human stress and boredom as productivity and efficiency can be achieved at almost 99.999 percent in such a manufacturing environment.
IR 4 version can be implemented with a lesser amount of qualitative concerns and occupational risks and injuries. In nuclear and chemical testing, employing humans may be a daunting task. Potential risks of disability and being disqualified for employment due to lack of physical fitness and post accidental health issues are very much minimised. Any disaster can be beyond compensation and medical insurance claims, since lives are exposed to massive threats in such hazardous operations.
‘Too much’ or ‘too little’ has to be averted in smart decision making, in order to reap benefits of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Technically, it is not feasible to figure out the optimum combination of the proportions of machine and labour. Yet, striking for a closer combination is where the success of this revolution lies.
Developing countries should be careful with excessive investments on industries and high tech manufacturing systems and products. As with corruption, it is likely that the tenders will preferably be called for high investment projects which are high cost machines. Failed projects are burdens to the nation.
This is also an era in which businesses cannot do without information and information systems. Therefore, we have to admit that there is an overload of information with the sensors and content reports that are generated as all-inclusive inputs for decision making.
This is where the human intelligence has an effervescent role to play. Decision making and production occurs at a faster pace, within a short cycle. This means that the intensity of the deadlines are also comparatively higher than in previous manufacturing revolutions. As such, employees should have better business acumen, and be able to look beyond information in its entirety apart from being aware of what is relevant, timely and crucial. The data generated in an IoT setup can be routine and similar but they are important depending on the type of the product or the manufacturing process.
With hands-on exposure, employees should be crafty to rule out the story beyond what big data reveal. A vigilant employees would identify what might raise the alarm, within a few minutes. But missing such instances would mean that your company might lose the competitive advantage and quality standards for the entire load manufactured, as well as the industry ranking and customer satisfaction which are not easy to regain.
Skilled employees who have been given a general training can generally pick up standard indicators and information, but only the geniuses can go beyond the standard picture.
A developing nation is faced with scarcity, as a result of limitations of investments with regard to managing public expenditure. Plus, these nations are densely populated and unemployment cannot be allowed to escalate. Socio-economic issues and social costs arising out of unemployment would also have unfavourable repercussions on the economic and political environment of the country. Henceforth, it is recommended that the two, scarcity of funds for investment and unemployment, do not contradict with each other.
Manufacturing is one sector where a developing nation has to excel in, when pursuing development status.
State of the art technology and machines are costly, but price declines when new versions replace existing machines. Therefore, investments or capital costs have to be written off as revenue expenditure in a shorter cycle periodically. It is mandatory that the magnitude of cost of investment and annual write-offs should be accounted for.
Now with big data and IoT, the role of communications is crucial. Human labour can be restructured to coordinate and communicate with machines and systems. New jobs will replace existing ones and people will have to be trained to face the revised way of working. Human labour can be prudently deployed to support the interoperability of systems, ensuring that standardised schemas are adhered to as IoT operates on large scale communications with both small and large scale environments, handles software complexities and helps enhance systems with user friendliness for business agility.