Smart Industry, optimize your production processes thanks to the new technologies of industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 refers to the “intelligent” factory or the so-called factory of the future using new digital technologies. These include the Internet of Things, collaborative robots, augmented reality, 3D printing, big data and artificial intelligence. These various digital technologies facilitate human work by automating repetitive tasks.

Industry 4.0 allows the implementation of a flexible production system with intelligent equipment that communicates with each other constantly, which generates a large volume of data available for exploitation (notion of big data). One of the challenges is to increase production flexibility and efficiency while reducing production costs, such as energy consumption and labour costs.

Transforming the industry through digital technologies contributes to rethinking its economic model, while offering new sources of growth.

Indeed, digital technologies are generating new opportunities for value creation, giving the factories of the future in Industry 4. 0 the chance to not only optimize their production systems, but also review their positioning in the value chain.

In 1990, industry represented 22% of French GDP. Today it represents only 11%.

Whatever their size or sector of activity, all traditional industries are or will be impacted by these innovative digital technologies. They can count, beyond the change management, on numerous advantages such as the improvement of internal processes, the improvement of productivity, the reduction of costs, an acceleration of the time-to-market,…

According to Accenture’s 2014 study, 97% of large companies believe that digital innovation is critical or important to their future performance.

This also refers to so-called additive manufacturing. These productions concern in priority sectors where the traditional processes have shown their limits and where the added value is real for the industrialist.

According to the 2019 study published by Smartech, the global additive manufacturing market is expected to grow by 21% per year by 2027, from $14 billion to $41 billion.

Additive manufacturing is of great interest for small, customized and specific production runs.

In the factory of the future, the 3D printer can be used to manufacture spare parts for machines, for example. The printer is then assigned to a type of material and not to a product line.

Today its applications extend to other sectors such as medicine, to produce for example dental prostheses or hearing aids. Many other applications are currently being explored.

With Industry 4.0, the production system is being transformed with the contribution of new intelligent digital technologies and processes to no longer depend solely on traditional production methods. This new interconnected production mode contributes to making the organization more agile, flexible and versatile.

Industry 4.0 thus favours the adaptation of production systems to changes in consumer habits, which tend towards more choice, more speed and at optimised cost. All this, thanks in particular to predictive maintenance.

The industrial revolution 4.0 is not only technological but also organizational.

The factory of the future sets up a new organization of work by freeing the human being from low added value and repetitive tasks. The factory of the future, more agile and intelligent, will generate new jobs. Artificial intelligence, robotics and automation will lead to job losses, but will also create new jobs requiring new skills.

This marks the end of the Taylorist model of organization and the beginning of more agile and autonomous organizations. Management is also evolving to accompany this cultural and organizational change in industrial companies.

According to the World Economic Forum, machine production will account for 50% of world production by 2025.

To meet the challenges of tomorrow, the organization is being redefined with the appearance of new jobs and the evolution of existing jobs such as team manager or plant manager. More than ever, people are at the heart of industrial transformation.

Related to the emergence of the concept of Big Data:

• Data Analyst
• Data Scientist
• Data Engineer

In connection with the arrival of new tools with high technological value:

• Industrial Maintenance Operator
• Industrial Maintenance Technician
• Industrial Maintenance Manager
• Operator Numerical control
• Line operator
• Methods engineer

IoT (internet of things) or IoT for Internet of Things, concerns communicating objects in the sectors of agriculture, health, intelligent buildings, retail etc.

IloT stands for Industrial Internet of Things. Equipped with sensors, equipment and machines interact continuously and in real time through communication networks, gateways and data exchange interfaces. Among the use cases, the optimization of preventive and predictive maintenance (see data models using artificial intelligence algorithms) is recurrent. When a critical threshold is detected by a sensor, an alert is automatically generated to trigger a human intervention, whether it is for repair, troubleshooting or replacement. This communicating device enables action to be taken before the machine breaks down, bringing a production line, for example, to a sudden halt.

The mass of data generated in real time by the continuous operation of industrial equipment, robots and other digital tools facilitates the remote operation of production systems. This is just one of the many opportunities offered by IloT.

All collected data is analyzed and exploited through IoT platforms. The industrialist is then in a position to manage his activity with reliable indicators, and make decisions with full knowledge of the facts.