Industry 4.0. is a trade revolution taking place before our very eyes. At APA Group, we are successively acting in line with this idea and are closely following the latest trends in this field. What can you expect in the years to come?
It would be difficult to implement any changes without tools that are intuitive to use. Preferably ones that you already use daily, so that you don’t have to waste your time and energy trying to learn “from scratch”.
For this reason, according to experts from Future Mind, a key role in the development of the fourth generation of industry is to be played by mobile technologies, especially applications within organisations, which would replace intranets, among other things.
As Tomasz Woźniak, CEO of Future Mind, says: Digital transformation is supposed to ensure that we respond quickly to disruptions and opportunities and meet customer needs, which are often novel and change with the market. By doing so, organisations prepare themselves for future growth as well, otherwise they may fall prey to technological debt.
In the modern manufacturing industry, trends related to the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence are gaining the strongest voice. This is also indicated by the report “Industry 4.0 market (…)” Facts & Dactors. Between 2021 and 2028, IoT will indeed dominate among all technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution.
As the report shows, solutions such as wireless networks, sensors and data processing infrastructure accelerate production rates, help assess equipment health in real time, reduce downtime and better plan maintenance schedules. None of this would be possible without an advanced 5G network, which facilitates equipment data collection and management, like nothing before.
The remote handling of processes will prove particularly useful in sectors that are highly demanding and dangerous. We are talking here, for instance, about the energy industry: oil extraction under water or mining.
The use of sensor data is designed, in part, to detect patterns of machine and component failures. There are many indications that predictive maintenance, about which we wrote in THIS ARTICLE, will only gain in significance in the forthcoming years. It will apply not only to newer equipment, but also to older machinery already operating in plants.
It is estimated that by 2022, three-quarters of industrial manufacturers will have been using digital twins to perform simulations and evaluations. This gives you food for thought.
A virtual replica of machines, employees, processes and even entire production plants will be used to visualise and simulate the entire supply chain. Without incurring any costs, it will be feasible to simulate the implementation of a planned solution, and to assess how it will work.
Based on virtual worlds, digital twins are merging with another trend, namely augmented reality and metaverse.
Meta-worlds offer tremendous opportunities for better product design, training or enhancing work ergonomics.
One of the less usual, although very important trends within the 4th generation industry will be the development of Web3 and blockchain technologies.
So-called distributed computing technologies, with blockchain and NFT at the forefront, will serve a number of manufacturers. These can not only monitor their supply chains more efficiently, but even automate many transactions.
There is even discussion that some products made in the future will be immediately sold with digital NFT certificates.
In the coming years, Industry 4.0 is expected to triumph in global markets. Demand for Industry 4 0 solutions is expected to reach $334.18 billion by 2028, an estimated increase of $250 billion from 2020, while companies in Asia-Pacific will see the strongest growth.
The challenges in question are primarily large initial investments and the necessity to hire qualified experts. The former, however, will not apply to companies that are already developing Industry 4.0 technologies at home and are only implementing newer, more advanced solutions.