Industrial Revolution 4.0

What is Industry Revolution 4.0?

Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution, although it is concerned with areas that are not usually classified as industry applications in their own right, such as smart cities.

Why should India adopt Industry 4.0?

Advanced analytics would help to enhance production capacity and its quality. The model would shift towards prediction and prevention of defects through data analytics.
The adoption of Robotics & automation would shorten production cycle, reduce time-to-market and bring inefficient utilisation of resources.
The digitisation of various business processes would lead to cost-saving and a better experience for customer and employees.
IoT and connectivity of machine to people and machine to a machine would tighten supply chain and reduce lead times.

According to an analysis by McKinsey, if Indian companies adopt Industry 4.0 across functions such as manufacturing, supply chain, logistics and procurement, they can enhance their operating profits by 40% at less than 10% of the planned capital expenditure.

How is India preparing for Industry 4.0?

India is keen on adopting Industry 4.0 and has taken several initiatives. According to IBEF, the Government of India plans to increase the contribution of manufacturing sector to 25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2025, from the current level of 16%. India is also prepared to face global competition by undertaking the Make in India programme. It is all set to lead the world with Smart Manufacturing.
The heavy industries and public enterprises ministry are facilitating the establishment of four centres in the country to help SMEs implement Industry 4.0
India’s first Smart factory is being set up at Bengaluru. This smart factory powered by data exchange in manufacturing and the Internet of Things (IoT). This Smart Factory is being developed at the Indian Institute of Science’s (IISc) Centre for Product Design and Manufacturing (CPDM) with funding from The Boeing Company.
Andhra Pradesh government aims to turn the state into an Internet of Things (IoT) hub by 2020. The state government plans to set up 10 IoT hubs with the participation of the private sector which will create 50,000 direct employment in various IoT verticals.

Reports state that the Smart factory industry is poised to touch $215 billion by 2025 and most of the major economies in the world are adopting it.

Sectors in India which have adopted Industry 4.0

FMCG: The Indian FMCG sector has started deploying Cobot or Collaborative Robots in their manufacturing process. Cobots are industrial robots that work alongside workers in a factory and require minimal supervision. Factories with weaker infrastructure and limited workforce can leverage Cobots to reduce lead time and do optimum utilisation of capacity.

Telecom: Vodafone Business Services provides smart IoT solutions for connectivity across the range of verticals such as industrial manufacturing, automotive, healthcare, smart city, and utility management.

Healthcare: Diabetacare’s smart glucometers is a classic example to demonstrate how patients can manage their diabetes better using IoT In the healthcare sector. IoT is making its presence felt in healthcare by connecting devices. This helps patients to keep track of their blood sugar, blood pressure etc.

India should adopt smarter strategies for Smart manufacturing

To leverage the best that technology has to offer us, India must embrace Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 has just started making inroads in Indian manufacturing and other sectors. Data-based decision making is also being adopted across industries. While certain steps have already been taken there is a lot more that remains to be done. There needs to a shift in mindset before there is a shift incapacity. Instead of just undertaking more capital expenditure, the focus should be on enhancing existing asset base. Adopting Smart manufacturing, analytics and IoT will give a new lease of life to industrialisation in India. Apart from policy implementation hurdles, one major bottleneck is lack of skilled labour or fear of job losses owing to Robotics & Automation. A smart strategy to counter this is to upskill workers and millennials in these fields and create more jobs.

Pro And Cons Of industrial Revolution 4.0

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The pros of the industrial revolution 4.0

1.Higher productivity

This happens with each industrial revolution and apparently productivity of each industrial era goes up 50 times over the preceding age. In the next 5-10 years, it’s estimated that productivity will increase by 5-8%. This is mainly because of increased automation.

2. Improved quality of life

Technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. One Channel CEO, Bernard Ford, exemplifies this by mentioning how “ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, playing a game” and even controlling the lights and temperature in our homes can be done remotely. Not to mention that soon we’ll have fully autonomous cars, or maybe we already do – depending when you’re reading this, and who knows what else.

3. New markets

Klaus Schwab mentioned that “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres” will create new markets and growth opportunities. It will blend improvements from several fields, that were often previously separated, to create a new product or a new service. Not only there will be more knowledge workers, but knowledge workers in new fields.

4. Lower barrier to entrepreneurship

We can already see that with new technologies such as 3D printing for prototyping, the barriers between inventors and markets are reduced. Entrepreneurs can now establish their companies and test various products with lower start-up costs without the traditional time and cost constraints often encountered with traditional prototyping methods. The typical barriers to entry are removed from the entrepreneurship equation.

The cons of the industrial revolution 4.0

1. Inequality

It is all about who gets the benefits of these technologies and of the results they help produce. The reality is that the largest beneficiaries tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital (shareholders, investors, and innovators). Technology is one of the main reasons why incomes have stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income countries. Shocking, isn’t it? The demand for highly skilled workers has increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills has decreased and the part in between them will start to wear thin. So this could also lead to potential job losses. Not to even mention that for developing countries there are technological and infrastructure challenges and skill challenges that are not easy to overcome.

2. Cybersecurity risk

When everything is connected, the risk of hacking data and tampering with it or using it for malicious intent is now more prevalent. It is not as contained as before. It’s more and more frequent that we hear the dreaded news of a new data security breach. So often, in fact, that it does not shock us anymore. Not to mention that it challenges the very nature of identity and privacy, especially with the increased use of data analytics and machine learning.

3. Core industries disruptions

We see this already. Taxis are competing against Uber and Lyft, Traditional television and cinema compete with Netlfix and YouTube, the hotel industry with AirBnB and any store is competing against Amazon. This has ramifications in the type of services being offered and the model through which they are offered as well as the jobs associated with them.

4. Ethical issues

With improved AI, genetic engineering, and increased automation, there are new ethical concerns and questions of morality that already differ greatly from individual to individual. With access to more data about an individual and a group of individuals, the risk of using it for personal gain and manipulation is even greater. I think we all remember Cambridge Analytica data scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal data of millions of peoples’ Facebook profiles without their consent and used it for political advertising purposes. Plus, this is only an example of those data missuses that we know of.

Conclusion

So here we are on that edge of the 4th industrial revolution that radically impacts our daily lives. It can be an era of economic and knowledge growth and improvements in the way we live and work, but we also need to be weary of its disruption potential and find ways to mitigate these risks.

Please let me know what other pros and cons of the 4th industrial revolution you are aware of and should be mentioned here.

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