CONTROL & AUTOMATION
INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
EU
HOW THE PHRASE WE LOVE TO HATE IS
CHANGING PEOPLE’S JOURNEYS WORLDWIDE
Little did the three scientists who invented
the phrase Industry 4.0 know that the term
would become such a global phenomenon
just a few years later. However, the
resulting global drive to digitalise has been
fragmented, with different countries using
differing phrases for activities contained
within Industry 4.0. Here, Jonathan Wilkins,
marketing director at EU Automation,
explains why, far from being an issue that
divides us, these journeys symbolise the
inception of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
In many ways, it was a trade fair like any
other. Except it wasn’t. It was Hannover
Messe; the world’s largest exhibition of
industrial technologies. As well as being
home to thousands of stands exhibiting the
latest and greatest developments in areas
such as automation, controls, power and
renewable energy, the trade show hosted
the launch of the phrase Industry 4.0.
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PECM Issue 36
THE BEGINNING
Three engineers held a press conference
at Hannover Fair in April 2011 to tell the
world about their new vision: Industrie
4.0. Here, Dr Henning Kagermann of
the National Academy of Science and
Engineering (acatech), Dr Wolfgang Wahlster
of the German Research Center for Artificial
Intelligence (DFKI) and Dr Wolf-Dieter Lukas
from the Federal Ministry of Research and
Education, explained that being able to
assert oneself as a production location in a
high-wage region is increasingly becoming a
key issue in global competition.
They said that one of the reasons why
Germany has been so successful at mastering
the economic effects of the financial crisis is
because of the development and integration
of new technologies and processes. Going
forward, this means getting ready for the,
internet-driven, Fourth Industrial Revolution.
THE PACE OF CHANGE
Where the First Industrial Revolution used
water and steam to power mechanical
manufacturing, the Second used electricity
for mass production. The Third used
electronics and information technology
to automate and now a Fourth Industrial
Revolution is using digital technologies to
characterise a fusion that is blurring the lines
between the physical, digital and biological
worlds.
The interesting thing is that, although the
revolutions themselves are nothing new,
what is changing is the speed at which they
are occurring. The First lasted around 80
years, the Second lasted around 44 years, the
Third lasted 31 years and the Fourth started
less than a decade ago.