Industry 4.0 is a project in the high-tech strategy of the German government, which promotes
the computerization of the manufacturing industry. The goal is the intelligent factory, which
is characterized by adaptability, resource efficiency and ergonomics as well as the integration
of customers and business partners in business and value processes. Technological basis are
cyber-physical systems and the Internet of Things.
Experts believe that Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution could be a reality in
about 10 to 20 years. Meanwhile, in the United States, an initiative
known as the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition is also working on the future of
manufacturing. Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition is a non-profit organization of
manufacturing practitioners, suppliers, and technology companies; manufacturing consortia;
universities; government agencies and laboratories. The aim of this coalition is to enable stakeholders
in the manufacturing industry to form collaborative R & D, implementation and advocacy groups
for development of the approaches, standards, platforms and shared infrastructure that facilitate
the broad adoption of manufacturing intelligence. Similarly, GE has been working on an initiative
called 'The Industrial Internet'. The Industrial Internet aims to bring together the advances
of two transformative revolutions: the myriad machines, facilities, fleets and networks
that arose from the Industrial Revolution, and the more recent powerful advances in computing,
information and communication systems brought to the fore by the Internet Revolution. According
to GE, together these developments bring together three elements, which embody the essence of
the Industrial Internet: INTELLIGENT MACHINES, ADVANCED ANALYTICS and PEOPLE AT WORK.
Description The term "industrie 4.0" refers to the fourth
industrial revolution. The first industrial revolution was the mechanization of production
using water and steam power, it was followed by the second industrial revolution which
introduced mass production with the help of electric power, followed by the digital revolution,
the use of electronics and IT to further automate production.
The term was first used in 2011 at the Hanover Fair. In October 2012 the Working Group on
Industry 4.0 chaired by Siegfried Dais and Kagermann presented a set of Industry 4.0
implementation recommendations to the German federal government. On 8 April 2013 at the
Hanover Fair the final report of the Working Group Industry 4.0 was presented.
Meaning Characteristic for industrial production in
an Industry 4.0 environment are the strong customization of products under the conditions
of high flexibilized production. The required automation technology is improved by the introduction
of methods of self-optimization, self-configuration, Self-diagnosis, cognition and intelligent
support of workers in their increasingly complex work. The largest project in Industry 4.0
at the present time is the BMBF leading-edge cluster "Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe".
Another major project is the BMBF project RES-COM, as well as the Cluster of Excellence
"Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries".
Industry 4.0 - what it means for the future industry
Recently, McKinsey released an interview featuring an expert discussion between executives at
Robert Bosch - Siegfried Dais and Heinz Derenbach, and McKinsey experts. This interview addressed
the prevalence of the Internet of Things in manufacturing and the consequent technology-driven
changes that promise to trigger a new industrial revolution. At Bosch, and generally in Germany,
this phenomenon is referred to as Industry 4.0. The basic principle of Industry 4.0 is
that by connecting machines, work pieces and systems, we are creating intelligent networks
along the entire value chain that can control each other autonomously.
Some examples for Industry 4.0 are machines that predict failures and trigger maintenance
processes autonomously or self-organized logistics that react to unexpected changes in the production.
So, what effects does this change have on the classic manufacturing value chain? According
to Siegfried Dais, “it is highly likely that the world of production will become more
and more networked until everything is interlinked with everything else.” While this sounds
like a fair assumption and the driving force behind the Internet of Things, it also means
that the complexity of production and supplier networks will grow enormously. Networks and
processes have so far been limited to one factory. But in an Industry 4.0 scenario,
these boundaries of individual factories will most likely no longer exist. Instead, they
will be lifted in order to interconnect multiple factories or even geographical regions.
The differences between a today's factory and an Industry 4.0 factory. In current industry
environment, providing high-end quality service or product with the least cost is the key
to success and industrial factories are trying to achieve as much performance as possible
to increase their profit as well as their reputation. In this way, various data sources
are available to provide worthwhile information about different aspects of the factory. In
this stage, the utilization of data for understanding the current condition and detect faults and
failures is an important topic to research. e. g. in production, there are various commercial
tools available to provide OEE information to factory management in order to highlight
root cause of problems and possible faults in the system. In contrast, in an Industry
4.0 factory, in addition to condition monitoring and fault diagnosis, components and systems
are able to gain self-awareness and self-predictiveness, which will provide management with more insight
on the status of the factory. Furthermore, peer-to-peer comparison and fusion of health
information from various components provides a precise health prediction in component and
system levels and enforce factory management to trigger required maintenance at the best
possible time to reach just-in time maintenance and gain near zero downtime.
What are the challenges? Lack of adequate skill-sets to expedite the
march towards fourth industrial revolution Threat of redundancy of the corporate IT department
General reluctance to change by stakeholders Role of Big Data and Analytics
Modern information and communication technologies like Cyber-Physical Systems, Big Data or Cloud
Computing will help predict the possibility to increase productivity, quality and flexibility
within the manufacturing industry and thus to understand advantages within the competition.
Big Data Analytics consists of 6Cs in the integrated Industry 4.0 and Cyber Physical
Systems environment. 6C system that is consist of Connection, Cloud, Cyber, Content/context,
Community, and Customization. In this scenario and in order to provide useful insight to
the factory management and gain correct content, data has to be processed with advanced tools
to generate meaningful information. Considering the presence of visible and invisible issues
in an industrial factory, the information generation algorithm has to capable of detecting
and addressing invisible issues such as machine degradation, component wear, etc in the factory
floor. Impact of the Industry 4.0
There are many areas that are foreseen to have an impact with the advent of the fourth
industrial revolution. Of which four key impact areas emerge:
Machine Safety Industry value chain
Workers Socio-economic
See also Big data
SCADA Internet of Things
Machine to machine Industrial control system
Industrial Internet Predictive manufacturing system
Computer-integrated manufacturing References
External links Cloud-based design and manufacturing
Industrie 4.0 – Hightech-Strategie der Bundesregierung Bundesministerium für Forschung und Entwicklung
- Zukunftsprojekt Industrie 4.0 Plattform Industrie 4.0
BMBF-Spitzencluster„Intelligente technische Systeme OstwestfalenLippe it's OWL
Exzellenzcluster Integrative Produktionstechnik für Hochlohnländer
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