Industry 4.0 is a process that stems from the fourth industrial revolution and is leading to a progressive automation and interconnection of all business processes. In this perspective, there are four developmental directions of change.
The first concerns the use of data, computing power and connectivity, and is declined in big data, open data, Internet of Things, machine-to-machine and cloud computing for the centralization of information and its storage.
The second is the collection and interpretation of analytics. Today, only 1% of collected data is used by companies, which could instead obtain advantages from "machine learning", i.e. machines that improve their performance by "learning" from the data collected and analyzed.
The third line of development is the interaction between man and machine, which involves "touch" interfaces, which are becoming increasingly widespread, and augmented reality.
Finally, there is the entire sector that deals with the transition from digital to "real" and that includes additive manufacturing, 3D printing, robotics, communications, machine-to-machine interactions and new technologies to store and use energy in a targeted manner, rationalizing costs and optimizing performance.
Industry 4.0 has been at the center of economic transformation in Italy and around the world for several years. In our country, an ad hoc government plan was launched in 2016, which then underwent evolutions and revisions, moving from Piano Industria 4.0 to Piano Impresa 4.0, up to the national plan of Transition 4.0.
During the Covid19 pandemic, Industry 4.0 and related technologies proved to be key to countering the crisis. In February 2021, Council President Mario Draghi expressed the need to "extend and make easily usable the national Transition 4.0 plan to accompany companies in the process of technological innovation and environmental sustainability."
Despite the fact that we have been talking about Industry 4.0 for quite some time, the move towards this automation process by European companies is still in its infancy.
According to a survey of 1,452 decision-makers in ten European countries (including Italy), conducted by the market research institute YouGov on behalf of the research institute Handelsblatt and TeamViewer, only 23% of European companies have begun the digital transformation of their production departments. More than half of companies have not even begun to outline a strategy or roadmap in this regard.
Most decision-makers associate the use of innovative technologies in production with increased efficiency (82%). Other expected benefits include improved quality and service levels (81%), reduced costs (81%), and greater security in terms of employee health, buildings and information (80%).
The time and cost involved (32%) is currently the biggest issue in digitizing their companies' production departments. In addition, concerns about cybersecurity (28%) and data security (25%) play a role, as does incompatibility between existing machines and new technologies (26%).
On the other hand, only a few companies see lack of staffing (16%) or employee acceptance of technologies (16%), or lack of management prioritization (15%) as the main obstacles to digital manufacturing transformation.
The survey focused specifically on the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions for digitizing production lines. According to the State of Industry 4.0 in Europe research, most decision-makers surveyed see potential applications for IoT (78% for Italy is 89%), AI (72% which for Italy becomes 82%), and AR (70% which for Italy weighs in at 81%).
For IoT, the main applications are expected to be order management automation (37%), machine-to-machine communication (33% which for Italy translates to 44%), predictive analytics (32%), and remote machine control (31%). For AR, decision-makers see the greatest potential in quality control (38%), assembly, maintenance and repair (36%), and manufacturing process optimization (36%, for Italy it becomes 42%).
In AI, decision-makers see possible applications in production quality monitoring and Yield Management (35%), failure prediction and predictive maintenance (31%), security monitoring and compliance measures (31%), and demand forecasting and production planning (31%, which for Italy weighs in at 37%).
"The survey shows two evidences that our customers also confirm: on the one hand, the road to Industry 4.0 is challenging for many companies, especially those that use important and expensive assets in their production. On the other hand, the majority have a huge interest in taking advantage of the enormous potential that the digitization of their production has to offer," comments Jan Junker, Executive Vice President Solution Sales & Delivery at TeamViewer.