The concept of industry 4.0 mainly refers to the paradigm shift that the manufacturing sector is facing thanks to the diffusion of digital technologies and their integration into the production chain. The technologies have the function of improving company processes and increasing the productivity anduality by the plants themselves.
Industry 4.0 takes its name from the industrial plan of the German government in 2001, which the modernization of the German production system, bringing Germany’s manufacturing back to the absolute top of the world. The plan includes various measures based on 3 key principles:
- Intervene with horizontal actions, common to several sectors;
- Operate in a logic of technological neutrality;
- Act on the enablers of industry 4.0
- Revolution 1.0 : occurred in the eighteenth century, through the introduction of steam engines;
- Industry 2.0: occurred in the fourteenth century through electricity and oil. In this period we are at the dawn of mass production;
- Industry 3.0: occurred in the twenury, through thetime to Database make use of the first forms of information technology and electronics. The first forms of automation and diversification of production begin to develop in the productive context
- Industry 4.0 : the one we are talking about. The so-called Enabling Technologies are central.
Benefits
- Greater flexibility through the production of small batches at large-scale costs
- Increased speed from prototype to series production through innovative technologies
- Increased productivity through shorter seeduction of errors and downtime
- Better quality and less waste through sensors that monitor production in real time
- Greater product competitiveness thanks to more features deriving from the Internet of Things
Technologies used in digital transformation and industry 4.0: some examples
- Artificial Intelligence: What characterizes Artificial Intelligence from a technological and methodological point of view is the learning method/model with which it becomes able to carry out a task or an action.
- Blockchain: It is an innovative way of sharing and storing information between two or more subjects belonging to a network. A database made up of Blocks (containing several transactions) which are connected to each other in a network so that every transaction started on the network must be validated by the network itself in the “analysis” of each withne Hit Post lea single block. The Blockchain is therefore formed by a chain of blocks that each contain multiple transactions.