EVOLVE Business and Professional Magazine April 2017 | Page 12

THE
AHEAD
THE NEXT MANUFACTURING REVOLUTION
by Jayne Fifer
“ M
eeting the Fourth Industrial Revolution” was the central theme at the
2016 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum. When approximately
2,500 CEOs, economists, politicians, academicians, religious leaders,
charity founders, and other attendees from around the globe began their discussion,
the first questions to answer were (1) How will the Fourth Industrial Revolution
unfold? and (2) Will we be ready? According to the World Economic Forum, the first
question is impossible to answer empirically. No one could have guessed that in less
than 50 years the huge computer occupying an entire laboratory at the University
of Pennsylvania that marked the beginning of the Third Industrial Revolution, for
example, would evolve to a ubiquitous pocket device on a vast network that connects
virtually everyone in the world. But it is that digital interconnectivity that the World
Economic forum agrees is driving the Fourth Industrial Revolution with “a fusion
of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological
spheres.” 1 The second question—how can we prepare for the Fourth Industrial
Revolution—is easier to answer: by educating and training tomorrow’s manufacturing
employees today.
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