Industry 4.0: Mobility in Manufacturing – Enhancing Productivity and Efficiency

We are currently in the midst of a revolution in industry, one that takes the incredible technological accomplishments of the recent past and unshackles them from the fixed workstations that have for so long been a necessity.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, often known simply as Industry 4.0, is the mobilization of industry, particularly in fields such as manufacturing, where entire supply chains, from procurement, through refining, manufacturing, finishing, and distribution, can be controlled through an enterprise smartphone.

It utilizes a range of technologies and takes on many different forms, some of which already exist in industry, some are available in other fields such as consumer technology, and some have started to emerge in the early 2020s.

To be ready to reap the productivity and efficiency benefits of Industry 4.0, it is important to know what it is and how it tangibly benefits industry and will change society as we know it.

What Is Industry 4.0?

To understand Industry 4.0, we need to explore that number in particular and explain what the Fourth Industrial Revolution is and the three Industrial Revolutions that came before it.

While there have been technological revolutions that have changed how people live and work since the dawn of humanity itself, an Industrial Revolution is defined as a broad process of technological, socioeconomic, and cultural shift, with each element shaping the other two.

In the case of the First Industrial Revolution, starting in the late 18th century, the development of the steam engine and the development of more efficient ironmongery methods led to the development of the modern textile industry and the invention of machine tools. This radically transformed many towns and settlements into major industrial cities.

This shift, in turn, transformed industry from a series of local and family operations to national and, later, international organizations, which meant that businesses increased in scale, size and scope, and people started to migrate from villages to towns and cities looking for work, creating major metropolitan hubs.

The Second Industrial Revolution starting in the 1850s introduced large-scale machinery in manufacturing, the development of the steam engine and later the internal combustion engine, and the construction of railways, steamboats and the telegraph, all of which had socioeconomic, technological and cultural implications.

The Third Industrial Revolution, also known as the Information Revolution or Digital Revolution, began in the latter half of the 20th century with the invention of the transistor  an electronic switch that enabled the development of telecommunications – the microprocessor and the memory chip.

This led to the development and rapid evolution of the computer and the Internet, two technologies that changed practically everything about how we live, work and do business with each other, particularly from the late 1970s, and the development of the microcomputer onwards.

Exactly when Industry 4.0 or the Fourth Industrial Revolution begins is a matter of debate, but the development of mobile devices, wireless communications, and the Internet of Things allowed for a business and industrial world not confined to a specific place.

A key aspect of Industry 4.0 is augmentation, or the integration of technology, digital information, and automation into industrial processes in a way that expands far beyond the automation of the assembly line.

In recent years, the rapid development of artificial intelligence has also become a major part of Industry 4.0, serving as a strategic aid in the way automation has become a mechanical aid to industry.

What Are The Tangible Benefits Of Industry 4.0?

A misconception a lot of people have about the Fourth Industrial Revolution is assuming it is still a concept for futurists. Many aspects of it are already in businesses great and small around the world, and the benefits are already very real and tangible.

Ultimately, in most medium and high-volume industries, technologies and principles established by Industry 4.0 lead to greater efficiency, leading to faster completion of manufacturing phases with fewer resources.

The development of machine learning and artificial intelligence allows for faster prototyping, and while AI has not reached the point where it can invent completely new products from start to finish, it allows for greater prototyping and fewer errors.

The development of 3D printing technology means that prototyping is faster and cheaper than ever, and in some cases, 3D printing has become so fast and efficient that it is used as part of the construction of finished products beyond the low-volume market.

As well as this, the Internet of Things and a greater array of sensors and data-driven analytics allows for machinery and technology to be monitored at a much greater level, allowing companies geographically distant to determine and plan for maintenance that would eventually be required.

Contrary to fears that some aspects of Industry 4.0 could lead to employees losing their jobs, in practice the opposite is commonly the case, with integrated technological assistance helping to make employees more efficient, more productive and more likely to stay with a company.

All three of these elements can be traced to how machine learning, AI, machine-to-machine communication and automation, in general, are best used not to replace human augmentation but enhance an employee and allow them to skip the rote and repetitive aspects of their job.

A great example of this in action was found with one of the first successful AI-driven checkout machines. BakeryScan helps to streamline and simplify the process of scanning baked products, allowing a checkout operator to focus on other consumer service roles instead.

That machine in question would later help to streamline the process of scanning microscopic sample plates for signs of cancer.

Most employees are looking for intellectually stimulating and fulfilling roles, and when their time is not taken up by busy work, they can focus on aspects of their job that they specialize in, helping to improve employee satisfaction.

On the other side of the divide, the amount of data available to customer service representatives and sales directors helps to improve customer relationships at both the business-to-business and business-to-customer levels.

Being able to see at a glance the progress of a particular phase of manufacturing with the help of big data management and visualisation makes it easier to inform a customer of the current state of a project, keeping relationships strong. This information could even be accessible to the customer directly.

This big data visualization is not only useful to convey information about your current manufacturing status but it also makes it far easier to monitor the overall state of the supplychain, examine potential bottlenecks and prepare solutions.

It allows manufacturers to use a wide pool of data sources to see current trends in demand and prepare accordingly, which reduces the risk of being caught by surprise by an influx of orders.

In a particularly automated system, most commonly seen at a consumer level, if a smart factory detects a potential shortage in the near future based on trends in demand, it could order a new supply of whichever materials it is running short with an adequate supply to meet the demand and create sufficient runway.

A natural consequence of increasingly automated and efficient systems is the development of more streamlined workflows, reducing the number of manufacturing steps used to create and assemble particular products, saving time and therefore money.

As machine learning systems have already shown, AI is an essential tool for quality control, able to determine in a short space of time whether a product has been assembled properly, streamlining and simplifying the role of quality assurance teams.

The core principle of machine learning is that an effectively trained AI will get better, more efficient and more accurate at a task the more it does it, meaning that smart factories using Industry 4.0 principles will inherently get more efficient the longer they can ruminate and identify inefficiencies.

As well as this, augmentation will help to eliminate the risk of human error, ensuring that issues can be addressed as and when they occur and are far less likely to be repeated.

Finally, it becomes far easier to streamline the process of ensuring regulatory compliance for the region the business operates, as these rules can be set at the system level and these decisions can be made transparently and largely autonomously.

As well as this, big data analytics allows business leaders and operators to be equipped with the information they need to ensure that compliance protocols are being followed in all aspects of the business, in formats securely accessible on all types of devices including enterprise smartphones.

Finally, business leaders will only be asked to intervene in situations where there are exceptions to expected manufacturing norms or a conflict of goals, reducing the risk of interference.

As these technological systems become more standardized and common in different industry sectors, we will also see a cultural and socioeconomic shift to adapt to the new norm, and future employment cultures focused on fewer work tasks that are more important in the long run.

The impact will be seismic, and the companies that stand to gain the most are those that are already making moves.