The Fourth Industrial Revolution Popular about the main technological trend of the 21st century

Fifth Industrial Revolution (Industry Industry 5.0)

Main article: Fifth Industrial Revolution (Industry Industry 5.0)

Introduction

Concept of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0)

The fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0) is the transition to fully automated digital production, controlled by intelligent systems in real time in constant interaction with the external environment, going beyond the boundaries of one enterprise, with the prospect of merging into a global industrial network of Things and Services.

In a narrow sense, Industry 4.0 (Industrie 4.0) is the name of one of 10 projects of the state Hi-Tech strategy of Germany until 2020, describing the concept of smart manufacturing (Smart Manufacturing) based on the global industrial network of the Internet of Things and Services.

Broadly speaking, Industry 4.0 characterizes the current trend of automation and data exchange, which includes cyberphysical systems, the Internet of Things and cloud computing. Represents a new level of production and value chain management throughout the product lifecycle.

Change in technological patterns followed by a sharp jump in productivity and economic growth (industrial/industrial revolutions)

• The first industrial revolution (late XVIII - early XIX centuries) is due to the transition from an agrarian economy to industrial production due to the invention of steam energy, mechanical devices, and the development of metallurgy.
• The second industrial revolution (the second half of the XIX century - the beginning of the XX century) is the invention of electric energy, the subsequent production and division of labor.
• The third industrial revolution (since 1970) is the use of electronic and information systems in the production, which provided intensive automation and robotization of production processes.
• The fourth industrial revolution (the term was introduced in 2011, as part of the German initiative - Industry 4.0).

Despite the active introduction of various types of infocommunication technologies (ICT), electronics and industrial robotics into production processes, the automation of industry, which began at the end of the 20th century, was mainly local in nature, when each enterprise or division within one enterprise used its own (proprietary) control system (or a combination of them), which were incompatible with other systems.

The development of the Internet, infocommunication technologies (ICT), sustainable communication channels, cloud technologies and digital platforms, as well as the information "explosion" of data that broke out of different channels, ensured the emergence of open information systems and global industrial networks that go beyond the boundaries of a separate enterprise and interact with each other. Such systems and networks have a transformative impact on all sectors of the modern economy and business outside the ICT sector itself, and translate industrial automation into a new fourth stage of industrialization.

Industry 4.0 Components

• Elements of the Internet of Things
• Artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics
• Cloud Computing
• Big Data
• Additive manufacturing
• Cyber security
• Integration system
• Modeling
• Augmented reality

Many of these elements have long been successfully applied in practice, but it is their integration into one integral system that will develop the concept of Industry 4.0 and provide a new level of production efficiency and additional revenue through the use of digital technologies, the formation of network interaction between suppliers and partners, as well as the implementation of innovative business models.

Cybernetic view of the Fourth Industrial Revolution

The prospects for the offensive of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, caused by a new stage in the development of technology, were actively discussed in 2016-2017. What is its essence? What is characterized and what will the next round of progress lead to? The answers to these questions are provided by the material that expert Leonid Chernyak prepared for TAdviser.

The idea of ​ ​ another industrial revolution is not new, but the discussion of this topic escalated after the Davos Economic Forum and the speech of the president of this business club Klaus Schwab in January 2016. The consequences of Industry 4.0 became the subject of discussion at various similar forums, including St. Petersburg, held in June 2017. Due to the specifics of such meetings, they discuss not the causes or drivers (they are taken for granted), but the consequences, including global geopolitical, economic and social, as well as problems to be solved at the national level.

The point of view of the business elite is most fully outlined in the document of the Swiss bank UBS "Extreme automation and connectivity: The global, regional, and investment implementations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution." Unlike the mass of other popular publications, it does not have excessive pathos and various kinds of subjective forecasts.

The same scientists and engineers who directly carry out this revolution usually profess purely technocratic beliefs. For them, the revolution comes down to the sum of new, but already quite well-known technologies today: cloud computing, big data, cyberphysical systems, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, the Internet of Things and some others. An illustrative example is the article "The Fourth Industrial Revolution" in the Russian-language Wikipedia.

Both positions have every right to exist, but for all their opposite, they are united by a common weakness - the lack of the necessary consistency in this case. Aside is the fact that this revolution, like any other, is an extremely complex and, we emphasize, systemic phenomenon. It cannot be seen solely as a "black box" and as an imminent inevitability, reducing everything to reasoning about these or consequences, as politicians and economists do. And it is also a mistake to dissect the revolution into separate components, missing the dialectical connection between them, which, in fact, creates an explosive synergistic revolutionary effect. This kind of public "bipolar disorder" is found in the authors of most materials about any revolution, from the Great French to the latest "color."

From the history of the question

According to one royal dressmaker, "everything new is well forgotten old." Surprisingly, many features of Industry 4.0 were quite plausibly predicted by Nikola Tesla. In 1926, in a conversation with a correspondent for Collier's magazine, which was extremely popular at that time, he said, among other things:

With the advent of wireless systems, the whole Earth will turn into one huge brain. We can communicate with each other almost instantly, regardless of distance. What's more, with television and a phone, we can see and hear each other as beautifully as if we were sitting face-to-face, separated over thousands of miles; and the devices that will allow us to do so will be strikingly convenient compared to our phones today. A person will be able to carry them in his pocket. We'll be able to watch and listen to events - presidential inauguration, sports championship, earthquakes or battles - as if we're there. And when wireless energy transmission is commercialized, there will be a revolution

This is how the home news process was represented in the thirties of the 20th century. Especially touched by a napkin and a vase

In the 21st century, Nicola Tesla's predicted "one huge brain" and devices to carry in your pocket is already a reality, but the great electrical technician could not have imagined the emergence of such things as cybernetics and artificial intelligence, computers and computer networks.

Data - New Oil

If we analyze the specific features of all four industrial revolutions, we can distinguish a characteristic trend, namely, a constant increase in the value of automation and control systems. This trend largely explains the specifics of the current Fourth Revolution.

To illustrate this statement, let us highlight the three "whales" on which any of the industrial revolutions stands, and see how their values ​ ​ are transformed when moving from one historical period to another. These whales, in turn, are based on the achievements of fundamental and applied science.

So, the first whale is raw materials, as well as sources and methods of energy transfer, the second is technology and the third is the organization of production and management.

At the end of the 18th century, the main raw materials were coal and iron, the main technology was steam and the conversion of thermal energy into mechanical energy. As for the mechanization and organization of control, they, as such, were then absent, except that there was a Watt regulator on a steam engine. In the second half of the 19th early 20th century, with the advent of electricity, opportunities opened up for the start of work on the scientific organization of labor, conveyors and ideas of taylorism appeared. A little later, work appeared on the theory of automatic control and various kinds of tabulators.

As a natural consequence of this process in the late 40s, cybernetics arose - a scientific direction specializing in management. In the sixties, with the advent of computers, technological and organizational management systems became even more important. In the late 20th century, the role played by control systems became comparable to the significance of the technologies they drive. Such technologies have appeared, the existence of which is simply impossible without automation.

This simplest analysis shows that for more than two centuries there has been continuous improvement of automation systems - from a centrifugal regulator to modern, computer ones.

The difference between the latest control systems of the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution can be called quantitative. The sensory revolution, which began with RFID sensors, computer networks, the collection and accumulation of media data and other technologies, made it possible for control systems to receive almost any information about the world around them. There was so much data that they began to be called Big.

Features of four industrial revolutions

Society's response to the explosive increase in data can be compared to the account of the Indians of the Piraha tribe living in the rainforest of Brazil. They use only three numerals: one means "one or two," the other means "several" and the third means "much more" or just "a lot." Perhaps it is worth talking not about Big Data, but about data in general.

In the foreseeable future, the data will occupy a significantly higher position in the economy than occupied by hydrocarbons

More recently, in the 1990s, say, at the level of relational DBMSs, the data were not considered as some kind of independent entity. Even experienced experts called the data "a bag of bits and bytes," and if they thought about the fundamental difference between data and information, then only a few. In the 2000s, the data was talked about as a "new oil." The expression was first used by English mathematician Cliff Humby in 2006. In 2016-2017, analysts argue that in the foreseeable future, the data will occupy a significantly higher position in the economy than occupied by hydrocarbons. It is no coincidence that the term "data-driven" came into use in an application to economics, programming, journalism, science and other areas driven by data.

"Data-driven" involves making decisions based on data rather than intuition or personal experience. Simply put, the idea of ​ ​ "data-driven" arose when it became possible to collect data in sufficient volumes and analyze them for objective decisions. Hence the hobby for Big Data, various kinds of data and text mining technologies, and the like. These values ​ ​ themselves have no value, and the added value is obtained by analyzing them for the emergence of useful and consumed information.

The central point of the new economy is Data Science and people with the specialty data scientist. Under the umbrella name Data Science, many different, not yet systematized methods and technologies coexist to analyze large amounts of data, and there is no genuine data science to call this name yet. Data Science is nothing more than a generalized name for the sum of technologies for producing data products.

Data products are familiar to everyone, first of all, from search engines - we consume search results without thinking about where, how and by whom they are generated. Today, the sale of content is becoming a big business, the Internet contains a huge number of different kinds of data-driven applications, but all this is passive data use. Active data products can be called those where there are people involved in the process of creating such products, and there are technologies for creating them.

Data scientist specialists solve four main problems:

1. Convert the original raw data into a form suitable for analysis.

2. Actual data analysis.

3. Interpretation of data.

4. Application of data to practice.

Unlike natural raw materials, when using these, their amount does not decrease, but, on the contrary, increases, which is a qualitatively new phenomenon. The creation of technologies for working with data avalanche-like creates a need for new technologies. The economy has not yet known such a positive feedback phenomenon. By analogy with "electrification" and "computerization," now they talk about "dating."

Extreme capabilities and cybernetic approach

Even an average modern car reaches speeds of up to 200 km/h, that is, its power and dynamics for an ordinary owner are not restrictions. The main thing in it is security, convenience, economy and the like. Roughly the same can be said for Industry 4.0 information systems. They are distinguished from the past by the lack of noticeable restrictions. They have extreme productivity, providing extreme automation and extreme connectivity.

Extreme performance is an obvious thing. These are multi-core processors, in-memory computing, SSDs, clouds, big data analytics and everything else that makes up modern computer technology.

Extreme connectivity is understood as the conditions under which barriers associated with distance, time or some other restrictions on interactions between people and machines, people and people, machines and machines disappear. In fact, the beginning of this process was laid in 1982 with the creation of the Internet operating over the TCP/IP protocol, although the term internet itself, as an abbreviation for internetworking, was proposed several years earlier.

Much later, the term Internet of Things (IoT) was proposed, then the "industrial Internet" Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and more recently, in connection with the advent of blockchain technology, the Internet of Value (IoV) and, finally, the Internet of Everything (Internet of Everything, IoE). IoE brings together people, data, processes and things.

Extreme automation is, first of all, the methods of artificial intelligence in all areas of human activity - in business, in public administration and even in private life. Note that we are talking about the so-called "weak AI," which does not imply the creation of "smart" machines that pose the danger of robots and the like to humanity.

Weak AI (Weak AI) refers to systems that have no mind and no computer intelligence (Non-sentient computer intelligence). They are focused on solving purely applied problems. The most famous and affordable example of weak AI is the Siri question and answer system (Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) developed by Apple for iOS. This application uses natural speech processing to answer questions and make recommendations. Siri adapts to each user individually, studying their preferences for a long time, but it is completely narrow.

Weak AI also includes work on automation of driving a car, deep machine learning systems and data processing in natural languages ​ ​ (Natural Language Processing, NLP). This should also include the Internet of Things (IoT), machine-to-machine (M2M ), cyberphysical systems and some other things.

The combination of extreme connectivity with extreme automation on the foundation of extreme performance opens up the possibility of creating large systems built on the basis of a cybernetic approach. Until now, the application of the cybernetic approach has been limited to technical systems. As for business or government, decisions were made and made here often at an intuitive level, and computer systems, such as ERP, serve only as auxiliary tools.

Combining extreme connectivity with extreme automation on the foundation of extreme performance opens the way for large systems built on a cybernetic approach

The cyber approach to business management, based on decisions dictated by objective data analysis (data driven decision), will eliminate the chronic illness of any management systems of any enterprises, for which there is a figurative name HiPPOs (Highest-Paid Person's Opinions, "decides who gets more"). This rule of decision-making is inherent not only in business, but also in any administrative systems, where money is also accompanied by official positions. The optimality of such decisions is overwhelmingly questionable.

How to create a digital enterprise. 6 milestones towards Industry 4.0

About what criteria the company must meet, to consider himself a participant in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, read here

Propaganda myth or "sign of trouble"

The "Fourth Industrial Revolution," for short 4PR, is positioned as a massive introduction of robotization and digital control technologies, which will reduce the dependence of industry on the cost of labor and give an additional impetus to the localization of the real sector. In fact, 4PR is the globalization and universalization of the principles of "distributed" production and access to finance. No more, but no less. And there is nothing fundamentally new in this approach: its key elements were tested back in the 1980s at both the production and management levels^[1].

• There is no new energy platform. We use about the same energy platforms as 30 years ago, and the advertised "alternative" energy sources are actually the most archaic (not counting the question of their profitability).
• There is no new transport platform. They are used mainly in the technologies of the 1980s, even in the field of space exploration. Despite the shifts in the social accessibility of certain types of transport (primarily high-speed), there was no strategic breakthrough. The reduction of logistics costs is achieved mainly through organizational measures.
• There was no massive introduction of fundamentally new materials. There are advances in the field of new materials and the creation of new properties for old materials, but nothing globally revolutionary is happening in practice.
• There are no revolutionary shifts in the field of energy efficiency of production. Although there are some, we emphasize, evolutionary shifts in reducing the energy intensity of social life, which, however, are not always adequate in terms of "cost-efficiency."

Consider the principles of one of the key economic innovations of the 1980-90s - Toyota Production System. If we put aside the ideological and motivational part ("kaizen"), they mainly affect the service, logistics and management components of the production process. Toyota principles, in fact, are managerial post-industriality, i.e. the management of not so much resources as time and space, key components of the post-industrial world. This approach is absolutely in line with 4PR ideas.

Strategically, the cumulative effect of the 1980s changes was greater. But they were not considered capable of changing the essence of economic relations. And the totality of these changes was not seen as a globally catastrophic event that could bury the entire preceding economic order. There are just prerequisites for the restructuring of some, but not all, aspects in the functioning of the real sector of the world economy. Which will inevitably have serious social consequences. But this in itself is not a revolution.

terms of strategic effect, the development of the "digital economy" and 4PR are not so much complementary as mutually competing models for the further development of the global economy. Especially in terms of withdrawal points and redistribution models of "investment rent." In the "digital economy," the key type of "production" is the possibility of generating "rent" from the investment "air." In 4PR, the source of investment rent remains quite real resources and production.

In fact, there is no real technological - and economic - base for 4PR precisely as for the "revolution in industry." In the global "agenda" now there are only two aspects that can be considered as truly "revolutionary": new global logistics and new technologies of global finance.

But it should be another 5-7 years before new logistics (the new Trans-American Canal, the Great Silk Road, the North-South transport corridor, the pipeline system bypassing economic limitrophes, the Trans-African transport corridor) begin to play a truly global role. Naturally, provided that opposition to these projects does not go into the open power phase. In the meantime, the "new logistics" remains only a political and information factor.

The only element of the 4PR, which in practice has a "revolutionary" significance, is the question of a radical restructuring of financial communications and financial and investment relations in the modern economy.

However, the main question arises: what is the focus object of investment processes during the 4PR? Of course, at the initial stage, large investment resources will be required to technologically update existing assets and to solve the inevitable social issues that arise in connection with this. And the first 5 years of the "revolution" can be quite investment-friendly, albeit socially extremely dangerous - and probably fraught with serious costs in the developed countries of the industrial world, which combine a relatively high standard of living and the preservation of the industrial structure of society.

Industrial countries make up a large part of not only the developing world, but also the European Union, starting with Germany, where the structure of the economy corresponds to the industrial model even more than in Russia, and ending with Italy. Not to mention Poland or Spain. Instead of a division between the "northern" and "southern" flanks of the EU, a watershed arises according to the industrial/post-industrial criterion. And it may turn out to be much more politically harsh and socially sharper.

At a temporary "lag" of 5-7 years, and in historical terms this is an extremely close prospect, there is a risk of forming a "bubble," in which even resources "extracted" from financial speculation will not be able to find economically sound assets for investment. After all, one of the most important positive circumstances of the 4PR proclaims a fast and relatively comfortable system in economic and managerial terms, which allows for a quick operational reconfiguration. The task of periodic full renewal of fixed assets, the most capital-intensive element of the modern real sector, is leveled.

That is why the key component of the 4PR is not modernization as such, but the geographical cascading of technological processes, as well as the scaling of production depending on the size and dynamics of markets. And this, by the way, will be a big challenge for the post-Soviet space.

But then the system of calculating competitiveness, characteristic of both industrial and post-industrial capitalism, is no longer relevant. The basis is not efficiency, elevated within the framework of financial and investment capitalism to the rank of the highest value, but adaptability, the ability to quickly adapt to changing and qualitatively, and quantitatively markets, accessible from the point of view of economically justified logistics. And this is a completely different picture not only from the point of view of global issues related to the redistribution of technological and logistical rent, but also practical investment planning.

The question arises: where should the investment flow be directed. "In the first approximation" the following directions are seen as such:

• Geographic mobility of assets. Compact deserted enterprises outside recognized and affluent industrial centers. A sharp reduction in logistics requirements. Go to "lego-assembly." The main investment focus in this case is the engineering and adaptation of production to the needs of regions or macroregions (glocalization).
• Basic technological solutions. The key technological rent will arise and be charged precisely at the level of basic technologies, as well as the development and release of key components, the contribution of which to the total cost of products may be small.
• Human capital. Organization of social-production (and not just production) space around assets and social-supporting and trading infrastructure of 4PR. But the scale of this potential "area of ​ ​ investment" is hardly too large - it will be necessary to equip rather the sales infrastructure, but not the production of products.

The proclaimed industrial revolution is almost a return to artisan adaptive, customized production, but - and this is very important - when removing restrictions on access to investment resources and with a sharp increase in the "connectivity" of technological and operational processes, which is achieved through the widespread use of blockchain technologies in addition to the financial sector. The "factory-industrial" model loses the advantage of scale, which in the first half of the "zero" was one of the key.

Even superficial consideration of the issue of 4PR leads us to the conclusion: it is definitely not in industry, but, above all, in financial and logistics support. And also the possibility of a final separation of the manager from the assets.

If we use the Soviet paradigm, then from the invariable triad "director-party-chief engineer" in demand within the framework of the new system remains, oddly enough, "party trading," the function of which will be to ensure social stability in production. A "director" (not in the sense of a position, but in the sense of a function) can become an equally "remote" figure. Such as the "shareholder" is now. And the "chief engineer" can be partially automated (diagnostics), partially transferred to outsource (change of engineering solution).

And the very concept of "property" in the new economy becomes, at least, "mosaic." But if property is "mosaic," then how much can we talk about maintaining the traditional approach to investment? How possible, in principle, are investments in property, a real benefice, which exists only in a "dispersed form" in the blockchain network? Is it possible to invest in such property resources that are liquid outside of virtual finance?

It is also important that the "investment cycles" formed in recent years in the global economy have been burdened with a gigantic volume of investment derivatives and surrogates. Economic priorities with distorted market motivation began to play an excessive role. For example, stimulating investment in countries with high unemployment and cheap labor. Classic examples: Bangladesh, African countries, Pakistan, India. But it is worth remembering the industrial part of Latin America, a number of Asia-Pacific countries, classified as "industrial" tigers. "

We state: in the conditions of excessive "humanization of investment priorities," it is extremely difficult to implement the principles of 4PR. In order to successfully start at least the "fourth industrial revolution," at least in the systemically inferior form, as it is currently interpreted, it will be necessary to dehumanitarize the investment, and then - the operating space. Simply put, the operating space should 4PR become "socially irresponsible."

But then the ideal space for the "revolution" is the "investment wasteland," where there is no depressing socio-humanitarian burden.

For 4PR, it will be necessary to "clear" the space of previously established socio-economic obligations and reset the investment cycles formed in the last 25-30 years. Starting with the translation of relations between the "conditional West" and China into the channel of exclusively economic competitive interaction. "China" is also a conditional concept in which the PRC acts as the dominant center of the wider industrial space. West-China relations constitute a key "investment cycle" in the modern economy, which has become too economically "cumbersome," overgrown with various "political burdens." But it is impossible to "zero" this cycle without global consequences

Hence the question: is the imposition of the idea of ​ ​ the proximity and inevitability of a new industrial revolution part of the preparation for a global investment default? And this is what hides under the flowery term "revolution." Indeed, only after this default, after the imminent (albeit temporary) regionalization of global finances, will it be possible to assess the consequences and prospects of the new situation not from the point of view of the slogans of 4PR, which are themselves attractive, but from the point of view of their real socio-economic content.

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Quality 4.0 (Quality 4.0)

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Chronicle of events

2021

Creation of the center of the fourth industrial revolution in Russia

The Government of the Russian Federation and the World Economic Forum (WEF) signed a memorandum on the creation of the Center for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Russia. The press service of the Cabinet of Ministers announced this on October 13, 2021. Read more here.

National standards of smart production have been developed in the Russian Federation

On January 18, 2021, it became known about the development in Russia of national standards for smart production. The documents were created by the infrastructure center of NTI "Technet." Read more here.

2020

The British government is investing £147 million to modernize production to Industry 4.0

In 2020, the UK Government initiated a program to modernize the industrial sector with the transition to digital production and Industry 4.0. Read more here.

How today's HMI/SCADA solutions can accelerate the transition to Industry 4.0

Most of the data used by IoT industrial solutions comes from HMI/SCADA automation software. How to accelerate the transformation of production with this in mind? Automation technologies such as HMI/SCADA software have been around for many years. They provided the impetus for what many call the "third industrial revolution." In 2020, when the next phase known as "Industry 4.0" is reached, many companies are rethinking their futures and trying to understand how they can realize the benefits brought by digital transformation. Read more here.

2019

Galina Lvova, CDO "Sukhoy" on TAdviser SummIT - about the holding's movement towards Industry 4.0

Speaking at the TAdviser SummIT conference on November 27, representatives of the Sukhoi holding (part of the United Aircraft Corporation) spoke about their company's experience on the way to Industry 4.0. Read more here.

"Industry 4.0" in Lithuania: why industrial giants rushed to this country

By June 2019, Lithuania became the leader in the EU in terms of industrial production growth. This fact is partly due to the fact that the country attracts large investors: ROL, AQ wiring systems, IKEA Industry Lithuania, System Air, Dovista A/S - only a few Scandinavian companies that decided to start a new business in Lithuania. Read more here.

SMART standards

Main article: SMART-standards (Standards Machine Applicable, Readable and Transferable)

SMART standards are an integral part of Industry 4.0 and correspond to the fourth level of development of digitalization in the field of standardization according to the ISO/IEC classification. The main feature of this level is the achievement of such a quality of standards in electronic presentation (presentation), which makes them machine-readable (machine-executable), that is, along with the ability to read by a person, it makes it possible to process and use information and cyberphysical systems, bypassing a person.

Read also

• Digital enterprise
• Chemical industry 4.0
• IT in the agro-industrial complex of Russia
• What will the merger of the Internet of people, things and services lead to?
• How data became raw materials of the XXI century
• The most promising technology. What is the reason for the general insanity in machine learning?
• Mind instead of programming. The age of computers capable of thinking is coming
• Article:Internet of Things (IoT)
• Article:Internet of Things, IoT, M2M (Global Market)
• Article:Internet of Things, IoT, M2M (Russian market)
• IIoT - Industrial Internet of Things
• NB-IoT Low-Power and Wide-Area Standard, LPWAN
• Internet of Things: you can't stay in time
• RFID
• Smart Grid
• Big Data
• Big Data (Big Data) Global Market
• Big Data in Russia

Notes