Industry 4.0

To become more competitive, companies must be able to produce better and faster while maintaining similar costs. In order to improve the efficiency of industrial processes, factories 4.0 benefit in particular from automation (e.g. automation of quality controls using new sensor technologies). This industrial automation makes it possible to gain in productivity by relying on robotization and digital technologies (e.g. use of big data to perform predictive maintenance on tools). In addition, manufacturers must adapt to new customer requirements, as they are looking for ever more personalized products. Thus, industry must be able to produce in smaller series, with production lines that are more flexible and more responsive to large variations in activity.

To facilitate interconnectivity and high availability of digital technologies while tackling the increasing volume of data provided by the exponential growth of sensors and connected objects in the factory, connectivity must be optimal. For example, the recent deployment of 5G brings IoT to its full potential, offering much greater connectivity through industrial private networks, significantly increasing the volumes of data that can be transmitted, and reducing latency rates while using a highly secure network.

Cloud computing platforms also improve the connectivity of smart factories by providing secure access to real-time data from any location. Another example of improved connectivity is the cross-use of new sensor technologies with Big Data and Artificial Intelligence to collect and analyze a large amount of data that will be used to perform predictive maintenance.

One of the major challenges facing the industry of the future is connecting all stakeholders in a product’s ecosystem or, in other words, linking the different internal departments and external stakeholders (suppliers, manufacturers, customers, etc.) of the value chain. Digitalization can greatly improve industrial performance within an expansive business logic that integrates the entire supply chain, thus optimizing the quality approach and monitoring activities in real time. Digital tools must be easy to use and have flexible configurations in order to process information in a very short time and encourage stakeholders to use them.

To be sustainable, the industry of the future must minimize its environmental impact and guarantee a positive societal impact. Against the backdrop of the fight against climate change, smart factories must enable production chains to reduce their consumption of energy and raw materials, reduce their pollution, limit their emissions, and integrate environmental management throughout the life cycle of their products. At the same time, factory 4.0 puts humans back at the center of the factory. Indeed, the aim of automation is not to replace humans but, on the contrary, to give them their rightful place by allowing them to concentrate on tasks with higher added value. In this sense, humans and machines are complementary, and they work together to take advantage of each other’s strengths. Take, for example, the use of cobots.

The use of mass data and associated digital technologies by factories 4.0 may present a danger to the industry of the future. If smart factories use connected objects or cloud computing to gain efficiency, malicious third parties may find a way to access confidential data or hack information and production systems directly, resulting in dramatic consequences for the company in terms of cost, confidentiality, operational continuity, etc. In the face of this threat, the industry must implement a robust cybersecurity strategy to ensure the security of data, networks, and infrastructures.