The Emergence of Industry 5.0: The Fifth Revolution Adds Sustainability
Historic paradigm shifts in human progress and technology have always been marked by one or more groundbreaking innovations which springboard industry and society forward. What we refer as industrial revolutions have transformed all of our lives. They have enabled humanity to live longer, for the most part better, and have brought about the undeniably incredible world we experience today — complete with the internet, modern medicine, skyscrapers, flight and space travel (just to name a few). As we head into 2022, the landscape is again ripe for a tectonic shift in thinking. We are seeing ever more ingenious technological innovations that don’t just change the game, but do so with a better, brighter, more sustainable future in mind. The evidence is growing stronger for a new revolution — Industry 5.0.
Background: Pre-Industrial to 3.0
So far in human history there have only been four of these industrial revolutions, and despite 5,000 years of written human history [1], the first started as recently as the mid 1700s [2]! The industry of the day was overwhelmingly invested in agriculture and textiles, producing and distributing food to try and stave off starvation and keep society going while keeping everyone clothed and warm. Of course, availability and access to either was also very dependent on one’s station in life and overall wealth. Prior to the 1700s the power source driving productivity was what it had always been: labor — usually either human or animal. Everything changed with the advent of the steam engine. Fed by burning coal, this marvel enabled a whole new realm of possibilities and for the first-time society saw the ability for work and transportation to be done via machines at previously unimaginable speeds and scales [2]. The very landscape of the world’s economy changed forever.
The second industrial revolution began a little over 100 years later in the mid 1800s. The world saw the emergence of mechanized production via assembly lines. Machines coupled with newly mastered electrical power enabled mass factory production of goods with only the need for unskilled labor to keep churning — day or night. Populations of rural farm workers rushed to the new urban hubs for jobs, and mastery of the internal combustion engine led to the automobile and later powered aircraft, both of which would change transportation forever. Though widely accepted to have ended around World War I, knowledge is power, and innovations continued to refine and improve technology, stemming more innovations [3].
After another World War, a changing geopolitical landscape, the Cold War, and the technical pushes associated with them, humanity was quickly ripe for another. Industry 3.0 brought us computers, and with them automation. Now machines could manufacture other machines, we could go to the moon, and create a virtual network that we never realized at the time would bring the entire globe closer than ever before [4].
Since the first revolution, about every hundred years humanity seemed to find the next “key” technology we needed to push forward (Figure 1), but 3.0 was different. The computer wasn’t just a shift in industry, but drove shifts in the very fabric of our society and how we as humans went about the world, and we wouldn’t need another hundred years for our next leap — especially with Moore’s Law accelerating our journey.
Industry 4.0: Physical Meets Digital
Starting in 2010, the German government undertook a significant research-intensive effort to understand underlying trends in industrial practice and identify what high level innovations has the potential to take technology to the next level. After more than two years of work, the project showcased a smart factory. They demonstrated machinery and equipment reacting in real-time to real life situations and how much optimization and productivity could be realized through such a system [6]. The rest, in a way, is (recent) history. Industry 4.0 quickly came to epitomize the natural next step in how the world works — data. Our computers and computational power have become mature enough to process tera- (and more) bytes of information in seconds. Machine learning and the beginnings of artificial intelligence can begin to interpret the world and react in ways beneficial to us. Instead of just a globally sweeping network for communication and information sharing (the internet), we have established internets of things (IoT) and industrial internets of things (IIoT) using the cloud and embedded software to make these smart factories a reality. Equipment at various points along a production line can talk to each other and compensate for delays, our refrigerators and thermostats can learn from our habits, we can print materials into incredible geometries through additive manufacturing, and we can even start to predict technical problems and likely issues before they happen.. with safety systems that automatically address them [4]. Industry 4.0 has merged the physical and digital worlds, and us along with it — everything can be connected anytime, anywhere.
Data for a Better Tomorrow
So, we now see how far we’ve come, from pre-industrial to Industry 4.0, but aren’t we in Industry 4.0? How could another revolution already be emerging? That’s a great question! 1.0 mechanized; 2.0 mass produced, combusted, and electrified; 3.0 automated and computerized; and of course, 4.0 brought data and the real world together. Each set of innovations enabled the next, and accelerated the successors achievement. Less than 30 years passed between 3.0 and 4.0, and our new data driven world allows us to learn faster than ever and speed up this revolution curve even more. We can now optimize our current state of the art with more heightened drive, and focus on our most critical problems. The answer is then less a matter of if, or even a matter of when, but instead a matter of what we choose. Data doesn’t lie, and it is clear Industry 5.0 isn’t a want but a need — a need for sustainability enabled through technology.
The world is still getting used to Industry 4.0 and its definitions, so there are many opinions that may insist that the answer to Industry 5.0 lay along other pathways. A common school of thought is the next phase lies in the interaction and collaboration between man and machine [8]. Indeed, with recent continued merging of the digital and physical worlds this is almost a certainty and is sure to represent many incredible changes in our world. This is just one piece of the bigger puzzle and would also contribute to the deeper motivation that is sustainability.
A Case for Sustainability
Data has served to confirm what we have long already known. The United Nations collected over 64 zettabytes of data in 2020, mining troughs of databases on food resources, hunger, climate issues, energy, and a wealth of other humanitarian concerns and the result was the establishment of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs) to improve quality of life and build toward a world without scarcity [9].
Conclusion? It is becoming more apparent every day that global challenges like climate change, resource scarcity, and social equity have become more pressing than ever before. As the world population continues to grow and progress, so too does our demand industry to expand and for the necessary energy to keep society running. If there is to be an Industry 6.0 and any other further development, then it is our collective responsibility and duty for Industry 5.0 to be defined as rethinking industry in a new sustainable way to shape and allow a better tomorrow for the next generations to come. This means considering all of our current state of the art and finding the next paradigm shift.
Hope & What a Sustainability Industry 5.0 would look like
Evidence for a sustainability-based revolution has grown to a head particularly over the past five or so years. As I reported in this article last year: CleanTech 2.0: Why will it be better this time?, instead of mass resistance which is what the sustainability movement met about a decade ago, the top 1000 business are now actively buying into the idea. In many ways this is due to the mass sociopolitical signals like the Paris Agreement and new initiatives from powers like India and China, indicating a global readiness for change and a collective societal push to make it happen before it may be too late.
We’ve learned that sustainability means more than just spending more money to be “green”. Instead, it’s being more efficient with less inputs for more outputs, more productive, leveraging systems, more respectful to our planet and its delicate resources and fragile ecosystem, and taking a human centered approach that is better for everyone.
The result is a distinct new megatrend in clean technologies. Electric vehicles, battery recycling, new forms of hydrogen fuel generation. Innovators have risen to the challenge and shown the sustainability isn’t an enemy to industry and progress, but really the needed pathway to the future we all want. We’ve put our money where our mouth is: venture capital investments in clean and climate tech have skyrocketed from less than $20 billion to an incredible almost $60 billion in the past half decade [11].
Here is what a sustainable Industry 5.0 looks like with a few examples from the last few days in my inbox:
- Autoflight has created clean, sustainable, and 100% electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicles to reduce congestion and improve mobility in high population areas.
- Faction is creating clean electric volume efficient urban cars that can drive themselves, providing delivery and personal commute services.
- Battery Resourcers is addressing resource scarcity and reducing toxic waste by recycling and revamping used lithium-ion battery components for second use with improved performance.
- AM Batteries has created a environmentally friendly, sustainable, and cost effect method to manufacture lithium-ion battery materials for a carbon-free tomorrow.
- NEOM, a new smart CITY is being designed from the ground up to be completely sustainable running off 100% renewable energy and cleantech.
And there are so many more examples. We are seeing that the way forward is humanity, machine, and data all driving forward together for a purpose of a better more sustainable tomorrow, for all of us. That sustainability is not only what we need to do, but is what makes the most sense for industry. These examples, combined with signals coming from the political climate, and investments, provide more than evidence that we have entered the fifth revolution: Industry 5.0.
Each industrial revolution we’ve have learned something, and now we can take everything we’ve learned and bring it all together. Since 4.0, we now have huge amounts of data informing every decision with unprecedented connectivity to ensure our system of systems is reactive and smart. Let’s together learn and build an attractive tomorrow where we all contribute to society and to our planet.
References
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-75926,00.html
[2] https://ied.eu/project-updates/the-4-industrial-revolutions/
[3] https://richmondvale.org/en/blog/second-industrial-revolution-the-technological-revolution
[4] https://manufacturingdata.io/newsroom/timeline-of-revolutions/
[5] https://medium.com/design-and-tech-co/the-overlooked-value-of-digital-transformation-da66c9134b0d
[6] https://www.iotworldtoday.com/2016/11/02/short-history-fourth-industrial-revolution/
[8] https://medium.com/@marcellvollmer/what-is-industry-5-0-a363041a6f0a
[9] https://www.un.org/en/global-issues/big-data-for-sustainable-development
[10] https://medium.com/tdk-ventures/cleantech-2-0-why-will-it-be-better-this-time-1657e8c2edad
[11] https://fortune.com/2021/09/28/this-time-is-different-the-resurgence-of-cleantech-vc-funding/
