Industry 4.0 - Fourth time’s the charm?

IE Editor Steve Gislam asks whether Industry 4.0 can play a part in creating a more connected world, and a fairer society, all while mitigating climate change.

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2020 has such a nice ring to it. Calendrical alliteration only comes around once every 101 years, and six weeks in, it’s already looking eventful. We’ve been brought to the brink of a US-Iranian war. The coronavirus has China under lockdown. Australia is simultaneously gripped by raging bushfires and flash floods. Brexit “got done” amidst scenes of misery and jubilation. In an unsettling sign-of-the-times, there’s a plague of locusts in Kenya. It’s all getting a bit Book of Revelations lately. All we need is another horseman and a Whore of Babylon and we’ve got ourselves the kind of party you don’t really ever recover from.

But there is good news. Away from all the political manoeuvring, endless conflict, environmental disasters and, of course, Harry and Meghan, a relatively quiet revolution is underway which might help save our species’ skin just in the nick of time. What’s more, it’s a revolution that most people don’t realise is happening. I speak, of course, about Industry 4.0 – the Fourth Industrial Revolution with the postmodern name - and it’s going to change everything.

We’ve come a long way since James Hargreaves’ spinning jenny helped kickstart the first Industrial Revolution back in 1764. The societal changes that industrialisation gave rise to are well documented. Eventually, it led to the complete upheaval of the means and methods of production, and brought humanity into a new era, fundamentally and permanently changing every aspect of life.

A century later, the Second Industrial Revolution brought the widespread use of electricity, steel, and petroleum, again changing how things were made and society with it – by essentially giving steam power an electrical upgrade.

The mid-20th century saw yet another significant change. The Third Industrial Revolution, or Digital Revolution, saw a massive shift from analogue and mechanical technology towards digital electronics. The invention and adoption of computers, microprocessors, and IC chips improved production techniques, heralding the dawning of the Information Age.

Which brings us to today. The digital transformation that we’re living through has become so compelling that it’s been given a self-referential moniker that could easily be dismissed as a buzzword that came from a late-night pizza-and-cocaine-concocted brainstorming session in some expensive PR company’s boardroom. However, Industry 4.0 is more than just a soundbite – it is honing and streamlining the computerisation that began in the post-war era – and changing our lives in the process.

The electronic devices that aided most aspects of society are now being connected in a way that allows them to communicate with one another through a complex network of semi-physical, semi-virtual systems known as the Internet of Things, or IoT, which lies at the heart of Industry 4.0.

IoT is tweaking, upgrading, improving our manufacturing methods, energy systems, healthcare, educational establishments and governmental institutions. This constant data sharing is making smart machines even smarter as they accumulate more information. It’s making factories more productive, more efficient, and less wasteful. What’s more, it can, and almost certainly will, be adapted to every aspect of wider society including how we work, live, socialise and consume. Industry 4.0 will ultimately make everything – not just machines – smarter.

Last November, Singapore was named the world’s smartest city in the IMD Smart Cities Index, which looked at how successfully world cities were adopting digital technologies to improve citizens’ lives. The index covered such aspects as governance, public safety, health, and mobility, and measured cities’ performance on improvements to institutional functionality, upkeep of green public spaces, the digitalisation of employment access, and citizens’ security. Singapore is just the first. Our cities are getting smarter just like our factories, hospitals, houses, vehicles, phones and refrigerators. Even our sun visors are getting smarter.

As with any world-changing technological development, there is the risk, indeed the certainty, that it will be misused and abused for criminality, and political control. If everything is connected, then everything can be hacked. This issue should not be underestimated. It may come to pass that companies and institutions follow the Kremlin’s lead which according to some reports, back in 2013, reverted to using typewriters and heavily-guarded filing rooms instead of computers and data storage systems to avoid leaks of sensitive information.

Fear of the future is an inevitable by-product of technological change. Back in the 15th century, certain clergy members feared the new-fangled printing press would encourage laziness in monks, robbing them of the character-building experience of handwriting copy, stealing their jobs and imperilling their souls.

Nonetheless, in a world that is moving exponentially faster with each passing year, the shift toward a more connected planet is not just inevitable, but imperative. We face global issues that know no national borders and require collective action in a way never before seen. Public opinion is beginning to represent that understanding too. The security issues of connectivity will be an ongoing battle, like with many new technologies. Those of us who remember the world pre-internet, could easily fall into the regressive belief that things were wholly better in the good old days, especially when faced with a pace of change that makes the average 30-year-old feel like a dinosaur.

Humanity stands at a crossroads. Whatever happens, we can’t go back. The planet won’t allow that. That bridge has been burned (probably by wildfire). So, forge ahead we must. Industry is a force with the power to change the world and will be at the forefront of the next move forward, as it has been for the last 250 years. Industry leaders shoulder great responsibility. They must be equal parts tech-savvy, progressive, ethical, and able to persuade shareholders that profit can no longer be its sole guiding force, whilst still actually turning one over.

Industry 4.0 brings with it many opportunities to connect our planet, cushion the impact of climate change, and create a society that is fairer, and more genuinely democratic and transparent. Whether or not we fully embrace those opportunities remains to be seen.

It’s still possible that, in a few decades, when enough time has passed to give us 20/20 hindsight about the 2020s, we’ll look back on a decade when humanity “smartened” up its act, in every sense of the word.

The author, Steve Gislam, is Editorial Director at Industry Europe

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