Industry 4.0 or industry for nothing?
1 min read
"Industry 4.0 is an opportunity for the UK to apply its many skills and technologies and become one of the first [European] states to eliminate low-cost labour as a prerequisite of a successful manufacturing economy."
That was the word recently from Steve Brambley, deputy director of GAMBICA and convener of this automation and control association's VSD (variable speed drives) group.
He was speaking of the increasingly popular networked industry concept, rather grandly billed as the fourth industrial revolution, following the widespread conversion to electrical power. And he commented: "If the UK thinks strategically and co-ordinates action between government and industry, while it still stands level with other countries, Industry 4.0 could be the reason why the UK is ultimately successful in redefining itself as a manufacturing economy."
So what's this about? Well it's a little vague: A bit of machine-to-machine communication and 'the Internet of Things'. Pundits, however, see it as realising the idea of self-organising factories, with machines and tooling 'talking' to one other, planning systems and even the products they're making. If you like, it's the next level of much vaunted 'mass-customisation' finally replacing mass production – founded essentially on industrial grade wireless networks and distributed machine intelligence.
Fanciful? Technically, not in the least: Look at modern automotive production plants such as Nissan in Sunderland with its emphasis on RFID tag-orchestrated automatic operations, driven via smart machine interfaces and wireless networks. So it can be, and is being, done.
The only issue: There's a whole swathe of industry out there that would need to tool up with the technology – particularly in terms of the shopfloor – and that's not going to be cheap. Yes, there may well be a long-term ROI argument for some manufacturers, but no, even with an improving economy, for the vast majority it's going to be out of reach.
Which means that UK plc is vulnerable. Brambley points to the German federal government, which has already made €200 million available to help industry associations, research institutes and companies develop Industry 4.0 implementation strategies. He also highlights research initiatives, such as the RES-COM project or the Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe (OWL) cluster, which are already underway.
Given Germany's successful track record in everything from automation systems to manufacturing software over the last 30 years, can UK government afford to ignore the writing on the wall?
