Industry 4.0 - Revolution or an Evolution?

The term Industry 4.0 is currently prevalent in almost every industry fair, conference and executive meetings. No manufacturing executive want to miss to include this in their strategy. However every other industry report and analyst survey provide an indecipherable view on the state of implementation.

So is it just a flashy phrase? Or one that raises eyebrows, but leaves each one skeptical of what they see as yet another piece of marketing hype, an empty catchphrase.

A closer look at Industry 4.0 explains a powerful confluence of trends and emerging technologies promising to change the way factories work and to reshape the way things are made. The impact of this change is utterly unprecedented, it will disturb almost every industry in every country, with the transformation of entire systems of products, production, business models and service delivery.

And everyone is in agreement here.

Although the effects of this change will be articulated as revolutionary, when considered in retrospect, for most them the maturity will be a gradual one, an evolution rather than a revolution. This is why Industry 4.0 is not a Greenfield project, it definitely needs to take along the continuity with legacy systems that have evolved over decades, and are still functional. The path to the Industry 4.0 will therefore be an evolutionary one; its impact on existing manufacturing operations will be more gradual.

Therefore in Industry 4.0, we are is only in the cusp of a great revolution. And it is critical that the strategies are set – right and straight, relevant to business, and not just do for the sake of it.