Industry 4.0 is the Revolution that companies cannot ignore
Everyday there’s something new to know, to discover, to implement in every single aspect of our life: communications are faster, means of transport are more ecological and AI helps us for an increasing range of tasks.
Industry 4.0 is this: innovation, automation and efficiency.
I had the opportunity to get my hands on Reply’s project focused on Industry 4.0 on July 6th at Reply XChange17 in Milan: here’s is a brief summary.
According to the Boston Consulting Group(BCG) there are nine technologies that characterize this revolution:
- Autonomous robots
Autonomous bogies will speed up production and help humans to move products through depots. Reply is working on similar projects that involves beacons, cameras embedded in bogies to manage warehouses in a more efficient way.
- Simulation
It means testing machines and evaluating possible changes before starting production, exploiting the connections between machines and data collected thanks to cloud, AI and machine learning technologies.
- Horizontal/Vertical System Integration
“With Industry 4.0, companies, departments, functions, and capabilities will become much more cohesive, as cross-company, universal data-integration networks evolve and enable truly automated value chains.” (From BCG’s report)
Reply has announced in February the release of a new open cloud-based platform, BrickReply, consisting in an unique control core that is connected with every production step and analyzes all data coming from these process. At Reply XChange at the Smart Factory demo area we saw how it works, and how easy was for just one man to control and recap live all the parameters of the production.
- Industrial IoT
“Industry 4.0 means that more devices — sometimes including unfinished products — will be enriched with embedded computing.” (From BCG’s report).
A clear example coming from Reply XChange was the managing of the company fleet, in that case a group of Linde forklifts, remotely checking several parameters as routes, products moved and machine state which were given by sensors, beacons and cameras.
- Cloud
All the systems that are involved in this revolution firstly need to share and analyze an enormous quantity of data. As previously said e.g., BrickReply is a cloud-based platform; it’s evident how the scalability, efficiency and safety of cloud are fundamental for Industry 4.0. [For more info check Google Cloud Next article in Reply U Talents]
- Cybersecurity
As a consequence of moving the control and the analysis of production chain on cloud-based platforms, we have to protect all communications between machines granting safety from cyberattacks that may affect production and costing in terms of profit. This is a critical task strictly related with cloud: in case of cyberattacks, one example of defense procedures is the SOC(Security Operation Center) response to help the company from a quick detection the damage and its source to a resolution of the incident.
- Additive Manufacturing
For companies, additive manufacturing basically means 3D printing. In fact now it’s possible to create a new object starting from a 3D model, always having a physical model of what we are going to produce. Replyers showed us how companies like Poltona Frau or Superga uses 3D printing configurators at the beginning of their industrial process.
- Augmented Reality
This is a not completely implemented aspect of Industry 4.0, but it’s already clear to experts how VR, AR and MR will help workers for managing difficult procedures(repairings e.g.), in real time too.
- Big Data/Analytics
The real-time analysis of machines data is going to be a standard process in industrial production. At Reply XChange the Demo Area focused on Predictive Maintenance showed us how industrial machinery’s parameters are constantly monitored via software. Exploiting cloud it’s possible to analyze all these data to detect anomalies sparing time and money for repairing. The machine can also recognize which product/part is producing giving informations about how many pieces are ready, or damaged.
It is evident how Industry 4.0 is a revolution that companies cannot ignore because all these technologies are going to affect forever industrial production. USA, Germany, UK, France, Benelux, Scandinavia and Baltic States(especially Estonia) are the leading countries of this revolution and Italy is going to join this club: according to Politecnico di Milano Industry 4.0 Observatory June 23, 2017’s report companies’ awareness is growing. To date only the 8% of Italian enterprises hasn’t heard anything about Industry 4.0, while in 2016 the percentage was around 38%. Despite “only” the 46% of consulted companies are completely aware about the adoption of new technologies for industrial production, the 26% have planned to invest more than 1million € in innovation. In Italy there are 245 startups that already have obtain 2 billions € in funding, and actually our Industry 4.0 be worth 1.7 billion €, meaning an increment of 25% in the last year.
Industry 4.0 is a challenge that must be taken. Some experts said that to win this challenge countries and companies must have risk-taking culture that has always been fundamental in every single tech revolution.
