The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0): Intelligent Manufacturing

Reading time ( words)

As the world is pivoting away from the third industrial revolution, what will we face in terms of running business, producing products, offering services, and living our lives?

The last industrial revolution was driven by striking advances in electronics and information technology having achieved enormous economic prosperity and manufacturing automation. So what is the fourth industrial revolution and what does it encompass? Is it gravitational pull?

The First to Third Industrial Revolutions

The first industrial revolution in the late 18th century used steam engines, which flourished the textile industry and other mechanization systems; the second industrial revolution in the final third of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries introduced electrically-powered mass production, creating steel industry, and telegraph and railroad systems. The invention of transistors in 1947 led the dawn of the digital age and information technology, thus the third industrial revolution has offered phenomenal applications of computers and electronic gadgets since the 1970s.

The third industrial revolution propelled the global economic development and the manufacturing advancement by utilizing information and automation technology, making the beginning and the continued progress of the vibrant and fast-paced digital era. As most of us have lived through (and are living in) this era, smart electronics has been proliferating and relentlessly moving toward a higher level of wearability, connectivity and mobility.

Five words speak for the essence of electronics: smart, mobility, connectivity, wearability, and innovation. Innovation has been the name of the game. It spurs an unprecedented growth of exponential technology during the period of the third industrial revolution.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution

The genesis of the term, fourth industrial revolution, also dubbed Industry 4.0, was rooted in the German federal government’s high-tech strategy in 2011. Industry 4.0 will leverage the Internet, digital technologies and quantum sciences to drive further into autonomous, intelligent cyber-physical systems.

Read The Full Article Here

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the July 2016 issue of SMT Magazine.

05/31/2023 | I-Connect007

Episode 4 of I-Connect007’s new podcast, On the Line with… features an interview with Christian Wendt, marketing and communications department head at Siemens Digital Logistics. Wendt discusses the most obvious area of concern for logistics sustainability: reduction of the carbon footprint.

05/24/2023 | Andy Shaughnessy, Design007 Magazine

At the Atlanta SMTA Expo and Tech Forum, I met Neil Hubble, president of the metrology systems provider Akrometrix. If you’re not sure exactly what metrology entails, you’re in luck. In this interview, Neil explains why metrology is becoming a critical part of PCB manufacturing. We also discuss the company’s capital equipment, testing services, and why Akrometrix counts many of the top PCB and semiconductor manufacturing companies in the world as their customers.

05/24/2023 | I-Connect007

Now available on Spotify, Episode 3 of I-Connect007’s new podcast, On the Line with… features an interview with Mark Laing, business development manager for digital industries software at Siemens. Laing discusses the role of electronics in achieving sustainability. Not only does the electronics industry have a primary role to play here, but it also contributes by creating products which enable other industries to monitor and optimize their sustainability practices.