Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0, referred to as the fourth industrial revolution, has exponentially grown starting from manufacturing sector, and is sweeping across industries, changing everything from production, business models, customer relations, research projects, education, regional, national and global innovation strategies. The driving force behind this development is the rapidly increasing digitization of economy and society and a growing concern with customer centricity and user-driven innovation. Industry 4.0 depends on a number of technological developments, one of them being information and communication technologies, which are used to digitize information and integrate systems at all stages of product development and service life, both inside an organization and cross-organizational. It depends on decentralization, virtualization, interoperability, real-time capability, and service orientation. Numerous industries around the world have set onto industry 4.0 in an attempt to boost competitiveness and product quality. Technology trends forming the building blocks for Industry 4.0 are big data and analytics, augmented reality, simulation, additive manufacturing, the cloud, cyber security, the (industrial) internet of things, horizontal and vertical system integration, and autonomous robots. These technologies will lead to greater efficiencies and change traditional relationships among suppliers, producers, and customers, as well as between human and machine.