Are you ready for the next ‘big noise’ in UK Manufacturing?

25 September, 2015

Ironically, the term Industry 4.0 was first used in 2011 at the above referenced Hanover Fair. In October 2012 the Working Group on Industry 4.0 chaired by Siegfried Dais (Robert Bosch GmbH) and Kagermann (acatech) 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. That is how recent and how fast this concept has developed.

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.  Examples of ‘Industry 4.0 compliant machines’ are those that predict failures and trigger maintenance processes autonomously or self-organised logistics that react to unexpected changes in the production.

Greater interconnection

Siegfried Dais is quoted as saying that; “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 another new concept, 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. 

Along with this super-connectivity comes the spectre of reduced security and as with the introduction of cloud computing, pundits for Industry 4.0 will have address such concerns if the technological benefits are to be fully realised and not hampered by the perception that Intellectual Property is being put at risk.  Dr. Huertas has gone as far as suggesting that manufacturers may be surprised at just how publicly accessible much of their data really is and even if it wasn’t, how minimal the commercial impact might be if it were to become freely available.

One thing is for certain; against this backdrop of intellectual debate and conjecture it is clear that Industry 4.0 is not simply a passing fad.  It is a fundamental new way of thinking about our manufacturing environment and it will have a profound impact upon what will ultimately be our ability to compete. A given company is ‘either in the game or it’s not’ and if the latter is the case such companies may find it harder and harder to compete in a globalised market where resources, materials, quality standards, waste minimisation, interoperability and fast response times are pushed to the very limits of what is possible. In a very few years from now, there will be companies and consultants offering Industry 4.0 consulting services in the same way as there are already in the field of Lean Engineering. Indeed, Dr. Huertas and her colleagues at the UK MTC in Coventry are already happy to take such enquiries. As the saying goes, ‘be there or be square’.