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Q 220. We are in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0). What are the main characteristics or components of it? Note for website visitors - Two questions are asked every week on this platform. One on Tuesday and the other on Friday. All questions so far can be seen here - https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/lean-six-sigma-business-excellence-questions/ Please visit the forum home page at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/ to respond to the latest question open till the next Tuesday/ Friday evening 5 PM as per Indian Standard Time. The best answer is always shown at the top among responses and the author finds honorable mention in our Business Excellence dictionary at https://www.benchmarksixsigma.com/forum/business-excellence-dictionary-glossary/ along with the related term.

Benchmark Six Sigma Expert View by Venugopal R Though the evolution of Industry in the world has been continuous, it is being classified into four stages, or generations, starting from the 18th century. The current advancements in the industry is being termed as the 4th Industrial revolution, also known as Industry 4.0. Before we discuss the characteristics of Industry 4.0, let’s take a brief look at the earlier stages to get an idea on where we have come from. Industry 1.0: It was during the 18th Century that manual methods for production were replaced by usage of steam power and water power in the Western world. Weaving industry was one of the first to take on, followed by others. Industry 1.0 may be seen as the beginning of Industry culture for producing volumes with efficiency and consistency. Industry 2.0: This revolution was around beginning of 20th century and was propelled mainly with the invention of electricity. The advantages of using electric power replaced the steam and water driven machines. Practices for mass production of goods emerged. Further, the development of railroad networks and telegraph brought people together through travel and communications. This revolution led to a up-welling economic growth. The early concepts of Management and Industrial Engineering surfaced. Industry 3.0: This is an era that most of us would have experienced in the later half of 20th century. Developments started after the two world wars. Digitization, starting with the electronic calculators, invention of semi conductors, integrated chips and programmable controllers made deeper strides into digitization. We saw the growth of extensive use of computers for various industrial and other purposes. In turn, this led to the development of software industry. Software usage expanded to various supporting areas of management viz. Enterprise Resource Planning, Logistics, Work flow, Supply Chain Management and so on. Industry 4.0: By the 1990s we saw abundant development in the fields of communication and Internet applications. Characteristics Industry 4.0 has revolutionized and will continue to revolutionize the methods for exchange of information. While the previous Industrial revolutions have helped in bringing the world closer in terms of communications and reach, one of the characteristics of Industry 4.0 is in overcoming geographical barriers for carrying out various activities on real time basis. Cyber physical Systems have resulted in phenomenal transformation on various businesses, providing for machines to communicate intelligently with each other overcoming physical and geographical barriers. Components Industry 4.0 is expected to evolve significantly in the near future. It has multiple components, many of them inter-related. Various articles may be found with listing of several components for Industry 4.0. I am herewith furnishing nine components as identified by ‘Boston Global Group’ 1. Big Data & Analytics An exercise to analyse large and varied sets of data to uncover hidden patterns, unknown correlations, trends, to obtain meaningful inferences that help various situations, especially business 2. Autonomous robots Robots will eventually interact with one another, work side by side with humans and undergo continuous learning 3. Simulation 3D simulation of product & material development, production processes will become widespread. Operators will be perform advance machine settings for next product. 4. Horizontal & Vertical System Integration Horizontal integration means networking with individual machines, items of equipment or production units. Vertical integration means gaining control and connection between different parts of the supply chain. 5. Internet of Things Network of multitude of devices connected by communication technologies that results in systems that can monitor, collect, exchange, analyse and deliver valuable new insights. 6. Cyber Security Processes and controls that are designed to protect systems, network and data from cyber attacks. 7. Cloud Computing Storing and accessing data and programs in the internet, providing real time information and scalability to support multitude of devices and sensors, along with all the data they generate 8. Additive Manufacturing Also known as 3D printing, it is used to prototype and produce individual components 9. Augmented Reality Currently at nascent stage, these systems support variety of services, such as selecting parts in a warehouse & sending repair instructions through mobile devices The above list may not be exhaustive and we can also expect new components to get added in rapid manner going forward.

Fourth industrial revolution is taken up by German Industrial Engineers and endorsed by The chancellor Angela Merkel Fourth industrial revolution (4.0) focuses on cyber-physical systems. The concept of Industry 4.0 was first used in Hanover meeting in 2011, by a group of people from different fields to enhance German competitiveness in manufacturing industry. we know that humans are prone to committing errors and performing repetitive work again and again brings errors frequently due to fatigue and monotoncity. Cyber-physical systems means physical systems will be connected and communicate with each other through cyber space, every system/machine will have its unique identity over the cyber space through which it will communicate with other systems. each system will be using network relay systems like wireless network card or RFID tags, bluetooth, WI-FI, etc. each system will perform self diagnostics to generate its state, collect and analyse data which was earlier cumbersome to manage because some data are not structured and make intelligent decisions. Industry 4.0 will utilize---- 1. Cloud technology-- intent is sharing of resources 2. 5G technology-- network technology used for communication i.e. voice and data transfer at a very high speed. 3. Block-chain technology- used in maintaining transactions across. 4. Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning- human intelligence mimicking 5. IoT devices technology- mobile & other devices connected through internet 6. Cognitive technology- making human like decisions in complex situations 7. Robotic Process Automation (RPA)- human actions mimicking. at present these technologies are moving fast by automating the processes and systems including machines.systems. machines/ devices/processes will interact with each other using 5G technology, sharing data and knowledge using cloud technology, analyzing and making decisions using machine intelligence, performing self diagnostics and mimicking human actions just as humans do and creating a green & cleaner environment. every technology has its pros. & cons. every industry is gearing with these technologies like we have smart Mobiles, smart consumer electronics ( Smart Tv's, Alexa device- listening and performing actions instructed to it, smart lighting, etc), smart factories, smart stores like Amazon stores- you need not to stand in queues just pick items of your choice and move out of the store rest will be done automatically through AMAZON app using Block-chain technology, smart hospitals where robots will perform surgeries, automotive industry-driver less car. As technology is advancing its vulnerabilities are also coming up like driver less car has met to an accident also it will be accident prone if used on routes where humans commute, Alexa device listens to all your conversations, smart TV if left powered someone might hack your devices and create trouble for you. we need to be careful while using these devices and strictly follow the intended functions and instructions until vulnerabilities are plugged in.

Bench is wrong, We can never consider a process to be perfect in a fast changing environment. Six sigma projects not only improve process but also provide an opportunity for innovative / creative solutions.If Kodak had would have done a six sigma project they would have been the leaders in digicam world today.Six sigma projects shall help a organization to create products & services for future.Six sigma helps the process to be active/live and if not done then the process becomes obselete.