Is the Industry 4.0 the Next Step?

The Economic history has been signed by different steps which have fixed new standard and way to image and to think the production chain and our life.  Since the first years of 1800 the Firms were invested by the first Industry Revolution with the invention of new mechanical production powered by the water.

During the decades, the concept of Firm is moved on new types of investments, arriving at the recent concept of Industry 4.0.

The revolution of Industry 4.0 is established by the concept of Smart Industry, with innovative industrial tools able to communicate each other.

A critical element is the evolution of traditional supply chains in a connect, smart, and highly efficient Supply Chain Ecosystem.

This ecosystem is based on full implementation of a wide range of digital technologies like:

• The cloud,
• Big data,
• The Internet of Things,
• 3D printing,
• Augmented reality,

and others.

The Result for the Companies will be a gain of 4.1 percent annually, while boosting revenue by 2.9 percent a year.

The key points to take in consideration during a digital transformation are the following:

• Understand your starting position: Review your current maturity along the four stages of the maturity model and identify areas for improvement;
• Define your strategy: Determine your target maturity level and the supply chain vision that best supports your business strategy;
• Develop the appropriate road map: Settle on the necessary implementation steps and work them into a detailed road map;
• Deploy small pilots with end-to-end scope: Many applications that make up the digital supply chain represent a radical change for most organizations, so companies should first carry out smaller pilots that showcase benefits and help develop the right capabilities. These “lighthouse” projects should aim at testing the end-to-end flow for a specific supply chain, rather than implementing a limited set of technologies on a broader scale;
• Segmented rollout and capability development: After a successful pilot, the rollout should start with those supply chains where expected benefit is highest. This could involve key customers, key regions, or some other supply chain segmentation criterion. The capabilities required will need to evolve along with the rollout.

The potential impact of Supply Chain 4.0

Expectations include up to 30 percent lower operational costs, 75 percent fewer lost sales, and a decrease in inventories of up to 75 percent. At the same time, the agility of the supply chains should increase significantly according to Mckinsey. The big data approach allows for the mass customization of supply-chain offerings by separating the supply chain into hundreds of individual supply-chain segments, each based on customer requirements and the company’s own capabilities.

The principal Benchmark are the following:

• Supply-chain service/lost sales
• Supply-chain costs
• Supply-chain planning
• Inventory

Focus on IoT

The IoT allows objects to be sensed or controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems, and resulting in improved efficiency, accuracy and economic benefit in addition to reduced human intervention which also encompasses technologies such as smart grids, virtual power plants, smart homes, intelligent transportation and smart cities.

The Industry 4.0 is the future became present, the Iot the instruments of this revolution composed to Smart Dialogues, Data and Intelligent Machines.

Source: On the MoS Way