Industry 4.0

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Definition

Definition from Wikipedia – Industry 4.0 is the subset of the fourth industrial revolution that concerns industry. Although the terms “industry 4.0” and “fourth industrial revolution” are often used interchangeably, “industry 4.0” factories have machines which are augmented with wireless connectivity and sensors, connected to a system that can visualise the entire production line and make decisions on its own.

In essence, Industry 4.0 is the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), the internet of things (IoT), industrial internet of things (IIOT) cloud computing, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence.

What does this mean for all of us? Basically, any organisation that has a technology solution or an organisation that is looking to harness this technology to provide; better, faster, cheaper or easier, will be harnessing Industry 4.0. It can now provide coverage in areas or facilities which it was not previously feasible or not technically possible or cost effective to do so in the past. With the advent of IIOT and 5G along with cloud computing, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence, we can now basically reach just about every location, manned and unmanned, even underground or in some cases inside products.

Cyber Industry 4.0

Some of the quickest and most practical solutions have been on the Cyber Security side. It’s made it cheap to implement in almost any environment, across the factory floor and even in remote unmanned locations. However, this new technology alone does not provide a solution on its own, it invariable needs an asset management solution to ground it, providing the base and platform to help establish what is happening and where. Other solutions are intrinsically linked, this technology is evolving quickly, and new solutions are being harnessed all the time.

In the Cyber Security world, it has allowed several historical technical solution organisations that have an established Asset Management Solution to step up into the next generation of solutions. Into the realms of Industry 4.0 solutions, elevating and adding sophistication & huge value to themselves but also for their clients.

Many of these clients across the Oil & Gas, Plant & Processing Industries, as well as Industrial Manufacturing have real practical solutions for the first time. These are providing better, faster, cheaper or easier solutions, in areas that they did not have a solution for at all in the past, often managing “on a wing and prayer” hoping that no one stole the assets.

Infrastructure

Other solutions have included imbedding sensors in concrete structures that will report on the viability of the product (structural integrity) and provide early warning should the product be under undue stress or strain. These can be used to better measure the life span of products as well as assess the ongoing structural integrity due to weather and temperature fluctuations, allowing for maintenance prevention. This allows for a huge insight in, ‘prevention verses cure’, but it needs to be implemented as a ‘layer cake’ not a ‘big bang’ approach, which in turn keeps the cost down and spreads it over time.

Production line

Solutions have been developed to automate, not just manufacturing processes but the actual workflows and the actual building blocks, reducing the amount of manual intervention and checking. Especially important when these are changed or updated, Industry 4.0 streamlines the process across the entire production line instantly, cataloguing errors or inconstancies quickly, preventing hours, days, weeks and months of checking and quality assurance across every area of production.

Going digital for any organisation is a huge investment and the impact can be considerable, but those that get it right are the companies that will survive and eat those that don’t. It’s about aligning all the systems, the base infrastructure but also includes multiple ERP, PLM, sales and customer systems. Again, it’s not a ‘big bang’ approach but a ‘layer cake’ that takes planning and vision, but the benefits are gigantic.

Industry 4.0 re-invents products and services from the design and engineering to manufacturing and ongoing support & maintenance. It will impact the traditional value chain and will pivot towards hyper-personalized systems, products and services and drive innovation across the business models. Creating new paradigms for revenue exploitation. Industry 4.0 is here to stay and will impact all of us, it is the fourth industrial revolution, and it’s picking up speed and impact as it grows.

The technology is no more complex than many other things, areas or industries in the past but needs experienced, knowledgeable individuals, who understand the language of the industries that it is being applied into (Oil & Gas, Plant & Processing Industries as well as Industrial Manufacturing). The technology and solutions themselves can be learnt quickly, but the language across these heavy industries that can take decades to learn, as each has its own nuances that need applying & understanding, to really appreciate the opportunities.