The 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) is truly underway, propelling the early adopters towards a greater market share at a much-reduced cost. In manufacturing, the 4th industrial revolution technologies are driving automation, which is supercharging productivity as a result while also reducing the load on human employees.
Sales, engineering, and factory workers are escaping the most boring, repetitive (and sometimes dangerous) tasks. They are now becoming more creative, strategic, and innovative, guaranteeing the long-term competitiveness of their employers. About 63 percent of the business leaders believe that Industry 4.0 technologies will be protecting them from a financial downturn.
To successfully operate through the next decade, you should be able to pick the right 4IR technologies and strategies for investing in. This article will give you everything needed to know for starting your 4th Industrial Revolution journey.
What is Industry 4.0?
There have been three industrial revolutions that have been scattered throughout modern human history. Each revolution has marked a huge leap for society in terms of human upskilling and technological advancements. Overall, they have hugely improved our lives:
First Industrial Revolution: The first industrial revolution began in Britain in the year 1760. The Brits were able to leverage the potential of steam and the steam engine. These discoveries allowed mechanized manufacturing, booming textile industries, and urbanization to name a few.
Second Industrial Revolution: During the late 1800s, oil, steel, and the newly discovered electricity brought the next wave of advancements. The combustion engine, the telephone, and also the light bulb was invented.
Third Industrial Revolution: Also referred to as the Digital Revolution, the 3rd Industrial Revolution happened during the latter half of the 20th century. Society changed dramatically with the arrival of personal computers and the Internet.
Industrialization in the 20th century allowed the global economy to grow 14-fold and the yearly income of individuals also swelled four-fold. However, the other side of this unprecedented growth has been a 13X increase in global energy consumption, wreaking havoc on the environment.
The 4th Industrial Revolution is happening right now. We are witnessing the complete disruption of industries that are now transforming how societies live and shape the future. The promise is also technological and biological advances without carbon emissions.
In 2016, Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum labeled this latest technological revolution the 4th Industrial Revolution – a revolution that blurs the lines between the biological, physical, and digital domains. We see a highly rapid development made possible by the technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things (IoT), the Cloud, autonomous robotics, and 3D printing, all of which we will be exploring below.
Industry 4.0 Technologies Bringing the Greatest Change
1. Artificial Intelligence
AI is the ability of machines to conduct and make human-like decisions. Unlike computers of the past, AI can dramatically improve how it “thinks” by digesting Big Data and harnessing the abilities of Machine Learning (identifying patterns and improving performance with learning algorithms .)
2. Internet of Things
Internet of Things (IoT) is at the core of the 4th Industrial Revolution. It connects multiple devices that can be as simple as wristwatches with the factory machinery and as complex as quantum computers, letting them “talk” to each other. These devices then function without any human intervention, building a much elaborate network than the sum of its parts.
3. 3D Printing
You can quickly print those tools or parts that are needed for a project by using 3D printers. 3D printing allows the localizing of the supply chain easier. It also makes rapid prototyping possible. With additive manufacturing (AM), the raw materials become finished products with considerably less waste.
4. Automation
The automation concept revolves around making humans do more important creative tasks while also transferring the low-impact functions to machines. The impact of automation on productivity, quality control, and even safety is huge.
5. Robotics
Robots are now coming of age, and they are now being used in factories and medical facilities as well. They can easily carry out a huge number of tasks independently, with the other robots, or even with humans. Training is instant, and they also never have days off.
6. Cloud Computing
The cloud allows businesses to store and access their information from absolutely anywhere in the world with internet access. Companies can also scale effortlessly without spending more on repetitive resources.
7. Virtual and Augmented Reality
Virtual Reality sends you to a very interactive digital world. On the other hand, augmented reality also takes the digital world to the physical realm by overlaying computer-generated graphics on imagery that’s captured by the screen of a handheld device.
You can apply these technologies to everything from gaming to even retail. Applications in manufacturing include training, quality control, order picking, health and safety, and product design to just name a few – the true possibilities are endless. Manufacturers can now let buyers witness and then interact with the configurable items even before they enter the production stage.
How Crucial is Visual CPQ to the 4IR?
A product configurator solution allows the manufacturers to sell highly complex products quickly, easily, and with increased accuracy. It’s also an easy route to the perfect adoption of 4th industrial revolution technologies.
A robust visual CPQ solution like KBMax features a visual product configurator. It’s a visual interface that the sales reps and buyers themselves use for the configuration of complex products. The users simply drag, drop, point, and click to change the colors, sizes, parts, and more as a 3D image of their product (which can be viewed using VR and AR) gets updated in real-time on-screen.
Once the configuration gets submitted, visual CPQ automatically generates different documents. A standard CPQ like Salesforce or SAP CPQ could also generate a sales quote, estimate, or proposal as a PDF, but KBMax generates a lot more.
KBMax features CAD and design automation, where this functionality means that it’s able to auto-generate the CAD files, technical drawings, and CNC data. It can also send this data automatically to the engineers for sign-off or even route it through the cloud directly into 3D printers, factory machinery (IoT devices), and autonomous robots.
Seventy percent of the manufacturing executives believe that their long-term success needs the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies. And approximately 80 percent of high-growth companies have teams focused on their innovation, pushing the partners towards adopting 4IR technologies. Visual CPQ is an affordable shortcut that’s easy to implement and maintain
