Industry 4.0 isn’t only about potential increases in resource efficiency in manufacturing, or robots harvesting vast amounts of data. It’s already happening now and it’s impacting your life is through improved products and services, road safety, better working conditions, and even healthcare.
The Impact of Industry 4.0 on Your Life
Industry 4.0 isn’t only about potential increases in resource efficiency in manufacturing, or robots harvesting vast amounts of data. It’s already happening now and it’s impacting your life is through improved products and services, road safety, better working conditions, and even healthcare.
The way we buy and consume products is changing thanks largely to wider ranges available and options like one-click shopping experiences. The amount of affordable mobile technology and advanced data manipulation is growing exponentially, and customers in the future will demand a wider range of choices and more personalized products.
What Industry 4.0 means to consumers
Telecoms giant Ericsson explores this in the 10 Hot Consumer Trends 2018 report, highlighting such emerging scenarios as these:
● Wearable devices will eventually replace smartphones and deliver higher degrees of data quality: “43 percent of those surveyed believe smartphones will be replaced by wearables,” write the reports authors. “…while 40 percent of smartwatch users already interact less with smartphones today. As wearables get smarter, the smartphone may become a secondary screen.”
● Smart assistants will become part of everyday life for many: “This could cause issues, with consumers becoming reliant on an electronic assistant for their purchases. For example, 57 percent of current intelligent voice assistant users would like an AI to help them with everyday shopping. But many already use a voice assistant that has been developed by an advertising company or retailer.”
The list goes on, but what is certain is that manufacturers are currently gearing up to make sure they are poised to react when consumer trends like this shift.
Manufacturers must be able to adapt quickly
“Future production must be able to adapt quickly to changed market requirements,” according to engineering and electronics company Bosch. “Industry 4.0 is the answer to this challenge.”
“Smart factories, which will be at the heart of Industry 4.0, will take on board information and communication technology for an evolution in the supply chain and production line that brings a much higher level of both automation and digitisation,” argues Tech Radar. “It means machines using self-optimisation, self-configuration and even artificial intelligence to complete complex tasks in order to deliver vastly superior cost efficiencies and better quality goods or services.”
Bernard Marr, author and speaker on business, technology and big data, warns that, “The question is not if Industry 4.0 is coming, but how quickly. As with big data and other business trends, I suspect that the early adopters will be rewarded for their courage jumping into this new technology, and those who avoid change risk becoming irrelevant and left behind.”
Don’t get left behind
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