No terms have captured the hype in manufacturing more than Industry 4.0 (or Industrie 4.0) and smart manufacturing. The supporting technology of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) has promoted the concept of digital transformation, promising to shift manufacturing to the same degree that Uber has altered the for-hire ride business or Airbnb has altered the travel lodging industry.
About the Author: Dan Miklovic
Dan Miklovic is a research fellow with LNS Research; he focuses primarily on asset performance management and energy management, with collaborative coverage across manufacturing operations management, the internet of things (IoT), chemical, paper and packaging, metals, and mining.
Business leaders are piling on the Industry 4.0 wagon for fear that failure to employ new technology will render them uncompetitive (at best) or irrelevant (at worst). Market forecasts portend technology investment over the next five to 10 years that means every business will have some degree of new smart manufacturing capability. Even those organizations that invest only minimally will still see a significant change in their value chain, whether they are at the beginning, the middle, or the end of it.
Getting return on investment will prove to be a challenge to some, while others will see immediate benefits by adopting advances such as additive manufacturing (3D printing); having the ability to sell value-added services such as machine performance insight; or even selling capacity instead of products, much like GE sells engine thrust rather than jet engines.
All companies, however, will face a distinct challenge that remains as an issue in any process change initiative: sustaining improvements. For organizations embracing Industry 4.0, that challenge will prove especially vexing if they continue with their current maintenance practices. The reality is that the vast majority of manufacturers and asset-intensive industries still are both immature and unsophisticated in their maintenance practices.
