Series 1 of 4
As 5G is slowly being rolled out throughout the world, it brings a new wave of opportunities without precedent. In this mini-series of ‘Industry 4.0’, we venture out to (1) explain what is ‘4.0’ and what came before, (2) priority of investments, (3) the models of digital operations, and (4) digital DNA.
The ‘.0’ designations represent a revolution thus, we are currently facing the 4th revolution of industry, which is extremely important for everyone in the world. Before the first revolution, everything produced by hand, process and progress was slow; manual labour was expensive or based on slaves. The First Industrial Revolution took place around the early 1760s and its introduction lasted until about the 1840s (implementation was relatively slow during this period of history), and it would introduce water and steam power mechanization alongside chemical manufacturing and iron production processes.
The Second revolution would introduce electric power mass manufacturing production, and the Third revolution would use the power of information technology and electronics to automate mass production.
The Fourth Revolution, Industry 4.0, builds upon the last by fusing technologies to the point of blurring the lines of the physical, digital and biological fields. Simply put, it is a revolution built on velocity, scope and systems impact. The speed of breakthroughs has accelerated tenfold in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, 3-D printing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, materials science, energy storage, and quantum computing.
Simply put, the Fourth Industry has blurred the lines of almost every industry in every country as it evolves at an exponential pace rather than linear.
The Future Arrives.