Industry 4.0 - Prepare, Adopt and Realise - A Perspective

The buzzwords like Automation & Robotics, IoT, Smart connected manufacturing, AI, Data Analytics, Digital Transformation, Digital Twin etc and mother of all Industry 4.0 are being commonly discussed today at all forums.

While this Fourth Industry Revolution is bound to set in sooner or later, the key is how well manufacturing companies (my thoughts here are limited to Indian context only) embrace it to maintain and continually enhance their leadership positions in the market place

We have been discussing the tenets of World Class Manufacturing for more than two decades now, though some substantial progress is made in terms of Continuous improvements ( Cost, Quality, Flexibility, Reliability, Innovation etc), we must also re visit some other guidelines of World Class manufacturing such as Equality, Team Autonomy, Delayering Management, Cell Organisations etc. While some leading and progressive manufacturers have been able to address them - many still need to catch up, when we talk of entire ecosystem.

Similarly discussions on JIT Manufacturing, TQM, TPM, Six sigma have been even older and we all are witness to the fact that how long it took us to reach where we are today.

Im reflecting on above, primarily on count of two aspects, one all above had a minimal technological disruptions and two, all above are way of doing this - a philosophy and a culture of new way of life.

In context of above, Industry 4.0 brings in huge technological interventions leading to transformation of current enterprise to a true digital enterprise and alongside brings in Digital Culture. While yet again many progressive and forward looking enterprises have started becoming Digital, but not sure if they do have a comprehensive Digitisation Strategy and RoadMap - but many especially when it comes to Tiered Suppliers have yet to begin this journey besides catching up on some or many of above. This is one aspect of readiness towards adopting Industry 4.0. Secondly, Industry4.0 too would become a new way life, a new culture, a new way of doing things.

Even more challenging aspect is around People and Change Management. One of course is digitally knowledgable and skilled workforce and second is the fear of Automation. Engineers and technicians cannot afford themselves to be confined with their core skills and knowledge areas but need to embrace such other skills which would become key for them to adopt and realise Industry 4.0 ethos. This applies to both the current workforce and new who would be inducted.

Above added with intelligently Automated and Connected manufacturing brings in a natural apprehension of relevance. Though this too remains a Change Management subject but I'm reminded of AutomationVs Autonomation theory of Toyota Production Systems and believe all Automations require human interventions. So the question is how well we prepare for propagating this change, though the pre requisite for this too is about upgrading skills and knowledge of all involved.

As a nation, we aspire to be global manufacturing leaders - the question is to realise this aspiration and the magnitude of task which we have in front of us - how do we address them? I'm mainly discussing about People readiness here (as below) as Change management would be mainly dealt with by individual enterprises.

Do we leave them for individual enterprises to deal with it or do we collectively collaborate to provide better answers. Some enterprises have taken it to themselves, some Industry - Institutions partnerships are in place, some Industry bodies and Government bodies do have certain initiatives around this. But then the need is to examine are they all aligned to one goal and objective, are they all trying to solve one problem or many such individual problems. Can they all comprehensively address the larger problem which we foresee.

   (All views expressed in this article are personal views of the writer and do not belong to any group/organization the writer belongs to. The article may contain some data which may not have been verified by the writer. References & images are duly attributed to the source .The writer of this article is not be held responsible for any misrepresentation of facts or data inconsistency or use of images to convey the message in this article)