I started Fifth Wave Manufacturing in 2020. At the time, I could not see how the Industry 4.0 standard could keep up with the light-speed changes taking place in manufacturing. This sounds like heresy. Now, let me quickly add that it will remain relevant for a long time because a great deal of its value was in the connectivity of fabricating machines. It was, and is, a good idea.
Meanwhile the market and the products in it have grown beyond the scope of Industry 4.0. Here’s a great example: AI. AI was not available as a product feature when Industry 4.0 was released by the German government (as a way to set a path for manufacturing-heavy Germany’s future).
As far as fabricating is concerned, the first generally available, fully functional, and “embedded” (built into the product, that is) AI was released a few years ago in multiple Mitsubishi products. (See our articles on it: Mistubishi Electric’s Maisart: AI meets laser cutting, EDM (fifthwavemfg.com), also New laser from MC Machinery uses artificial intelligence (fifthwavemfg.com) and New sinker EDM from MC Machinery leverages AI (fifthwavemfg.com)). Now, AI and machine learning are breaking into predictive maintenance, quality control, and are brought into increasingly complex decision-making roles. Additionally, they are fast enough to learn and adapt to real-time situations and states.
Additive manufacturing is another area that was not in production mode when Industry 4.0 was created. It was an exciting idea. Now, it is being used in prototyping and in some specialized production environments like aerospace and dental applications. Here are a handful more areas that are changing the relevance of Industry 4.0:
- The evolution of cloud computing: Cloud computing wasn’t much of a thing at the dawn of Industry 4.0, but now it is the thing—not just for the fabricating organizations, but for everything, everywhere. And today, that is changing. Edge computing is an adjunct to, or even an evolution of, cloud computing. Edge computing puts the computing power close to where it’s needed. It’s like the servers deployed out near users in distributed fashion, like Google’s distributed computing strategy (which the company has used since its beginning).
- The widespread use of robots in fabricating, particularly the use of cobots. No one expected robots and cobots to be so popular so quickly. Machine tending is growing very quickly, filling spots that have been open, in some cases, for years.
- Blockchain technology for supply chain management is making initial toeholds in fabricating, and because the rewards are higher the bigger your supply chain is, it tends to be a big-company concern at this stage, but don’t be surprised if it grows downward from there.
- Customization/personalization/service based on personae are being adopted because they are so danged practical. First, personalization really helps when you change shifts and someone different is now operating your press brake or laser cutter. In terms of persona-based access, imagine that your operators have an incentive plan based on good parts and good shifts. Who will be interested in the data driving this program? The operator in question, surely, but also the manager, the HR manager, and the payroll manager. Based on the persona, they have different access and different use for the data.
- The Internet of Behaviors (IoB) is the next step after IoT (the Internet of Things). The concept is to take the data that is already available to help change certain behaviors. In our example above for personae, add to it a safety program. With unintrusive methods, shop floor managers can find ways (with IoB’s help) to encourage the best safety practices.
There are more examples. However, my purpose is not to display an exhaustive list but to start a movement to create a new standard (this is why I named this brand Fifth Wave!). If you are like-minded, if you think it’s time to create a new document and say thank you to Industry 4.0, join me. If you don’t think it’s time, please contact me. Either way I’m very interested to hear what you have to say.
Dave Brambert
815-668-3050
dave@fifthwavemfg.com