Employment

The evolution of industry through time has always been a caused of changes at economy levels. From the very first beginning industrial revolution promoted alterations: economic activities in many communities moved from agriculture to manufacturing, production shifted from its traditional locations in the home and the small workshop to factories, the overall amount of goods and services produced expanded dramatically and the proportion of capital invested per worker grew, new groups of investors, businesspeople and managers took financial risks and reaped great rewards.

“The future is not preordained by machines. It’s created by humans.” These are the words of Erik Brynjolfsson, director at the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy. Nevertheless, it is undeniable that the continuing automation and digitization of our world and our workplace is a seismic shift. The truth is that the reality is changing, and the society should accompany with it. The job market is one of the many areas that need to embrace the development in a way to stabilize and contribute to a healthy economy.

The Industry 4.0 will and already is also causing several changes on areas such as economic development or employment. With this technology revolution business and management can become more accurate and predicitve as well as the consequences that come from them. Given this, it is expected with the improvement of technology and the help of new tools and methods such as Internet of Things (IoT) or Machine Learning  the following benefits:

1. Profit promotion
2. Job creation
3. Consumer attraction
4. Cost reduction
5. Anticipation and risk management
6. Pursuit of competitiveness over time

 

Apart from that, the 4th Industrial Revolution will also change the way work is done in very distinctive factors:

• It is breaking down the traditional silos that separate the different departments within a business, so that with real time time information they can optimize conditions and improve orders and production output. In short, sharing data makes manufacturing more agile, bringing the days of moving in silos to an end.

 

• It is dawning a new age of personalised manufacturing, combining customised production with the speed and on-time delivery expectations of today’s consumers. Intelligent and integrated systems play a vital role for manufacturers that want to put their customers first, delivering instructions to machines about specific customer orders as they progress along the production line, in an inversion of normal manufacturing.

 

• It requires a cultural change in the way humans work with machines. Not only will employees be able to work closer across different departments in an Industry 4.0 world, sharing real-time data and insights to make accurate decisions in the workplace, they will also be able to have some of their tasks automated by machines, allowing them to work on new, less tedious tasks instead, and crunching delivery timescales.

 

 

In brief, there is a generic consensus that attitudes and special vision need to shift, as manufacturers break down barriers between departments, embrace customisation and work in tandem with machines. It is up to employers and their teams alike, to embrace these changes and change their mindsets, as they grow their businesses in the Industry 4.0 world.

 

 

 

 

References: 

• https://schoolworkhelper.net/economic-changes-during-industrial-revolution/
• http://www.iaasiaonline.com/sector-spotlight/three-things-industry-4-0-will-change-work/
• https://europeansting.com/2017/03/10/changing-for-the-change-medicine-in-industry-4-0/

Environment

The advent of the Industrial Revolution left behind the agricultural and manual mode of production, using machines to help and even replace human actions and thereby expanding production and markets. However, caused significant environmental effects from the consumption of natural resources and the generation of waste.

The transformation that man has made to nature, with the use of machines and the ever-increasing need for raw materials, has given rise to a new relationship between man and nature, in which human beings dominate and exploit natural environments, especially in consequence of consumerism. Environmental degradation was increasing and rampant during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with obvious consequences in the 21st – air pollution, water and soil contamination, forest withdrawal, etc., which made future predictions for life on the planet sombre.

The Industrial Revolution led to urbanization, which, in turn, also caused problems related to the generation of solid waste (litter), the disordered occupation of the soil with deforestation and waterproofing and the contamination of river flows with sewage and solid waste.

As we can check on the graphic, human factors, moved by the industrial revolution, had, still have and will have a decisive role in the climate changes and on the way environment is affected.

With the industry 4.0, the world looks up in a new perspective, given that the revolution will have a positive impact on the three pillars of sustainability (economic, social and environmental). This last one responsibilities will help population, resources and natural problems, such as global warming since it englobes several changes:

• Larger conservation of energy and resources
• Improvement of consumption of renewable and less polluting energy
• An easier process of recycling
• Packaging minimization
• Considerable reduction of carbon emissions

We have learned from our past, and as the world becomes more global, it is sure to see that people are more aware of the harm we can do to our main protector, nature. Isn’t it a good idea to have an Artificial Intelligence responsible for recycling, or even having itself thinking about the environment?

In conclusion, the 4th Industrial Revolution will have a large positive impact on the way we look to the environment, the way we manage it but above all, it will help us to reduce negative effects such as pollution or energy consumption on a scale that we never could.

 

References:

• Research Overview dup. (sem data). Obtido 20 de Maio de 2018, de http://www.martinturcotte.net/research-overview-1/
• Revolução Industrial e a questão ambiental – Cola da Web. (sem data). Obtido 20 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.coladaweb.com/biologia/ecologia/a-revolucao-industrial-e-a-poluicao
• Silva, E. M. da. (2017, Agosto 6). Indústria 4.0 e a Sustentabilidade. Obtido 20 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ind%C3%BAstria-40-e-sustentabilidade-edson-miranda-da-silva

Advantages & Disadvantages

Ongoing through every single industry revolution the world was able to detect advantages and disadvantages. The 1^st one multiplied the human work and made production control easier but it caused a massive population migration problem. The 2^nd brought the mass production but also an incredible increase of pollution. The 3^rd marked the begin of computation and automation and technology started to play a larger role, on the other hand, lots of people lost their jobs and were replaced by machines.

The industry 4.0 is no different as the changes that influence our lives can be useful and on a business vision profitable but can also mean a crucial change in the ways deals and management are done.

Advantages

• It is easy to add new protocols and processes
• It is easy to install, activate and change in industry 4.0 architecture
• Clear and monitored communication paths in industry 4.0 make resource management very simple.
• Higher efficiency
• Better agility (accelerated processes)
• Customers better services
• Fewer costs (while industry 4.0 will require initial investments, once the intelligence is built into products and processes, the costs will plummet)
• Higher revenues and profits
• It enables execution of transactions with soft real time.

 

Disadvantages

• The IoT security is a major concern. The companies are working to address the security-related loopholes
• Skills and education of workers working on industry 4.0 based processes need to improve
• It requires maintaining integrity of production processes
• It requires educating staff to adopt this 4th industrial revolution. This requires considerable time as well as efforts across the industries.
• There is general reluctance to change to industry 4.0 by company stakeholders

 

As seen, the 4th industrial revolution has both positive and negative aspects, but we should get used to and embrace it, as it is present on our daily routine, which will become more intense through time.

 

 

References:

• Industry 4.0 advantages | Industry 4.0 disadvantages. (sem data). Obtido 20 de Maio de 2018, de http://www.rfwireless-world.com/Terminology/Advantages-and-Disadvantages-of-Industry-4.html
• Six benefits of Industrie 4.0 for businesses | Control Engineering. (sem data). Obtido 20 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.controleng.com/single-article/six-benefits-of-industrie-40-for-businesses/5c57cc3925c0ff323553da64108d5c0c

What is Industry 4.0?

At a time when the industry is globally positioned as a growth engine, playing a crucial part on the employment and social stability, the role of quick development of technology allows a repositioning of the industrial sector without above. The financial crisis and global recession of recent years have forced society to look at the industry in another way. The sector started to be valued by the real creation of value, much higher than what is possible in the services sector.

First was the mechanization of production, with the help of the steam engine, then the electricity and the mass production with the Henry Ford assembly lines. Industrial Revolutions have been driven by significant technological advances that led to changes in socioeconomic and cultural structures worldwide. In the 1970s a new industrial age – with the development of technologies such as computers, microelectronics, optical fibre, and fields like telecommunications, nuclear, biological and biogenetic agriculture -allowed the world to advance much faster. As world production levels increased, more the level of demand of the populations rose. With a rhythm of life accelerated, thanks to the impact of new technologies, companies had to align the demands of consumers in an increasingly competitive environment. The differentiation, with the level of profitability, it is done by the time each company takes from the moment you think about a product, required by a new market with huge capillarity and constantly changing, and makes it reach the market. The technological conditions were created for innovations never before possible and a new revolution was set to go.

The term “Industry 4.0”, or the 4th industrial revolution, began in a high-tech project of the German government and it is a recent concept that stems from the idea of computerization and automation of manufacturing, based on management and information technologies cyber-physical systems, opening up new developments and innovations to make processes more efficient. It is, therefore, the total digitization of objects and processes and their integration into digital ecosystems.

 

The basis of the creation of this new industry emphasizes that connecting different systems, the different companies will be able to create intelligent production networks along its entire value chain, so that it is possible to control all the devices autonomously.

This revolution emphasizes 6 fundamental principles that guide companies to identify and put into practice the actions envisaged:

• Real-time operation
Acquire, process and analyze data from different parts of the industry at the moment

• Virtualization
Format and maintain a virtual copy of the industry on servers

• Decentralization
Decision making performed by the system itself according to the needs in real time

• Service Orientation
Structuring and mentoring through industry-connected software

• Modularity
Production according to demand

• Interoperability
Communication between information systems – Internet of Things

 

References:

• Industry 4.0: the fourth industrial revolution – guide to Industrie 4.0. (sem data). Obtido 21 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.i-scoop.eu/industry-4-0/
• What Is Industry 4.0, Anyway? > ENGINEERING.com. (sem data). Obtido 21 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.engineering.com/AdvancedManufacturing/ArticleID/16521/What-Is-Industry-40-Anyway.aspx
• What is Industry 4.0? Everything you need to know | TechRadar. (sem data). Obtido 21 de Maio de 2018, de https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-industry-40-everything-you-need-to-know