Industry 4.0: what it is and how it changes the rules
The term industry 4.0 refers to that process which will make the entire industrial production interconnected and automated. This transformation has been made possible according to the consulting firm McKinsey thanks to the impact of new technologies on factors such as:
- Data use, connectivity and calculation capacity;
- Information collected via analytics;
- Interaction between human beings and machines;
- And the passage between the digital environment and reality.
Many people maintain that industry 4.0 constitutes the fourth industrial revolution. This revolution follows on from the ones prompted by the steam engine (1784), by mass production (1879) and IT (1979).
Although the start date of this new revolution has not been defined (probably because it is still underway), it has been the subject of discussion for some time, especially at the World Economic Forum.
It is in that context that experts have been trying to establish how technology and demographic trends will change the labour market. Cloud and the growing flexibility of certain professional roles will for example create 2 million jobs, but another 7 million will be lost.
In Italy, the two figures are forecast to balance out (two thousand jobs are expected to be created, but an equal number lost), while in nations such as Germany and France the outlook is much worse.
From the point of view of professional groups however, the main areas predicted to gradually decrease in number are administrative roles and those involved in production (in the former group 4.8 million jobs will be wiped out, while in the latter 1.6 million jobs will disappear).
Other sectors like IT, finance, engineering and management should be able to compensate at least in part, with the most sought-after skills in the future labour market being problem-solving, critical thinking and creativity.
As far as industry 4.0 factories are concerned, these will be equipped with machines which will be perfectly connected to each other:Â machines capable of carrying out precautionary maintenance and of a superior quality standard to current ones.
Furthermore, such environments will enable their products to be customised in accordance with customer requirements and robots will collaborate with humans to learn procedures naturally.
Industry 4.0 is a phenomenon which is gradually spreading all over the planet and in Europe, Germany is considered one of the leading nations in this respect, with France also making major advances in this area, while Great Britain (for the moment) has remained behind to an extent.
In the USA, on the other hand, despite the different approach, the targets to be reached are the same. Among these is the objective of encouraging a new phase in industrial digitalisation, which will permit increases in productivity, while reducing costs.
On the Italian Peninsula, the government’s plan for industry 4.0 was presented two years ago (2016) and contained a series of incentives aimed at persuading companies to sign up to the fourth industrial revolution.
This plan focused above all on 3 guidelines (adopting technological neutrality in the workplace, using horizontal business practices and concentrating on qualifying factors) and 4 strategies (innovative investment, qualifying infrastructures, skills – research and awareness – governance).
One year on, the government has listed the results achieved so far, while explaining that market orders of capital goods have increased and the number of business willing to increase investment on research and development has risen. Furthermore, according to expert sources, 3.5 billion euros have been invested in ultra-broad band.
Translated by Joanne Beckwith