Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0
Everything is connected with each other
Industry 4.0 refers to the intelligent networking of machines and processes in the industry thanks to information and communication technology. As a result, people, machines, and products are directly networked with each other.
The term goes back to the German federal government’s research union; in addition, a project in the federal government’s high-tech strategy bears this name and refers to a research platform. An important feature here is that industrial production is interlinked with modern information and communications technology.
Industry 4.0: The entire value chain is optimized
The technical basis for this is intelligent and digitally networked systems. With their help, largely self-organized production becomes possible: people, machines, plants, logistics, and products communicate and cooperate directly with each other in Industry 4.0. Networking makes it possible to optimize not just one production step but an entire value chain. The network includes all phases of the product’s life cycle – from the idea of a product through development, production, use, and maintenance to recycling.
The organizational design concept of Industry 4.0 includes four basic organizational design principles to support companies in identifying and implementing Industry 4.0 scenarios: Networking, Information Transparency, Technical Assistance, Decentralized Decisions. The characteristic of Industry 4.0 is the high degree of customization up to batch size 1, even in the context of mass production. The automation technology becomes smart and constantly better through specific procedures of self-optimization, self-configuration, self-diagnosis as well as cognition; the technology assists humans and can better support them in production.
