Industry 4.0 corresponds to the digital transformation of industrial companies.
This is a real upheaval in the economy and a disruptive change in this sector. The integration of new digital technologies within industrial companies is leading to changes in processes, management methods, business models and working methods. In practical terms, Industry 4.0 is characterized by the automation and the integration of the company’s value chain.
Factories become connected and smart.
This change is based on the exploration, management and analysis of massive data and the interconnection between machines. It responds to a need in flexibility and personalisation of the offer.
If you are interested in this topic, please read our white paper on Industry 4.0. LIEN
Key issues, and challenges
Industry 4.0 aims to bring together the real world (men, factories, machines) and the virtual world (software, big data, AI…).
This is thanks to:
- automation and integration of new technologies in the company’s value chain
- connectivity of the data and objects between them
It’s the digital transformation – or “digitalisation » – of industrial companies of all sizes.
This transformation creates many opportunities:
- The development of the industrial sector
- The economic growth
- The increased visibility
But Industry 4.0 is facing many challenges
Cybersecurity is at the heart of the challenges facing Industry 4.0. It is essential to protect sensitive information and know-how, as it is strategic data.
We detail all these challenges (and many others) in our white paper. LIEN
Industry 4.0 technologies
A wide range of digital technologies (both physical and software) are now present to industrial companies.
From design and engineering to administrative management, production, manufacturing and related services.
At the level of product design and engineering, we think of 2D CAD and 3D, allowing to quickly design several variants of a product. Advanced FAO is making it possible to eliminate human intervention in machine programming.
Industry 4.0 is also an optimized administrative management thanks to ERPs (integrated management software), CRM (customer relationship management tools) or GED (electronic data management). BI tools (business intelligence decision-making) enable executives and operational managers to make better decisions. Administrative management is no longer a burden but a source of opportunity.
In order to plan and monitor the situation of a production plant in real time, several digital technologies support production management. We think of QR codes or RFID technology (radio frequency identification) to eliminate manual inputs and thus gain in performance and reliability. The ESM (manufacturing execution system) drives the manufacturing system by improving responsiveness and productivity. Responsible for optimizing supply chain planning, the APS (advanced planning and scheduling system) improves decision-making and synchronizes flows (materials, equipment, men).
Discover most of Industry 4.0’s manufacturing and related services technologies in our white paper. LIEN
Opportunities to seize for many benefits
To better meet market needs and adapt to a highly competitive environment, factories are becoming smart. They rely on their data, connectivity and flexibility, to produce smaller or smaller series of sizes at a lower cost.
The implementation of emerging 4.0 industrial technologies presents many opportunities. Because by taking ownership of these new technologies, industrial companies are opening up to new prospects in terms of performance, growth and flexibility. By connecting people to machines, and machines to each other, and collecting and analyzing massive data, new business models appear.
Through the extraction, analysis and storage of massive data, the 4.0 plant has information and data models to optimize costs, to better control and meet deadlines and toimprove the quality of production.
Connectivity between machines and between users makes the industrial whole more responsive.
Finally, new business models enable industrial companies to combine services with their products and thus increase and diversify their business.
The best practices
As we have seen, Industry 4.0 presents many opportunities for companies, as the expected benefits are significant.
In order to benefit from it, it will be necessary to respect some “best practices“.
The starting point is to make a statement about the company’s current digital environment: the audit
We detail here LIEN LIVRE BLANC essential practices to the deployment of Industry 4.0 digital plan, data management, training, skills management etc..
Industry 4.0, a revolution for companies
By combining industrial know-how with the benefits of digital technology (telecommunications, connectivity, automation), Industry 4.0 makes factories smart, agile and efficient.
This revolution is facing many challenges companies need to be aware of: data management, changing corporate culture, the emergence of new business models, etc.
The expected benefits are an optimization and a better control of costs, deadlines and quality.
But despite all these advantages, Industry 4.0 faces many deployment difficulties. It is imperative for companies to implement a number of best practices to address them.
Just like the IIOT LIEN, the success of such a massive change project lies in a global reflection (integrating the entire value chain process) and taking into account the threats and challenges to be met.
An industry 4.0 project in mind ?
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Alexandre Langlais, CEO PERF’ACTOR