Overview

Industry 4.0 – These trends are becoming important!

The term Industry 4.0 has been around since the Hannover Messe 2011. Hardly any debate about the future of the economy can do without it. Sometimes it is also referred to as the Industrial Internet, the Internet of Things or digitalization. What is always meant is the same – the convergence of the analog and digital worlds. And the expectation is that this will create enormous potential for value creation.

The topic will once again play a central role at this year’s Hannover Messe. Exciting technologies and convincing best practices will be presented. However, despite all the euphoria, even after six years it is clear that there is still a considerable gap between vision and reality: Vision and reality are still a long way apart. Nevertheless, a lot has happened in recent years. And this doesn’t just concern the technological dimension. More and more companies are recognizing that digitalization encompasses all aspects of their thoughts and actions.

Customer perspective instead of product perspective

For example, the company’s own perspective. While the product perspective was the rule in the past, more and more companies are consistently adopting the perspective of their customers – not only in the B2C sector, but also in the B2B sector. This means that successful companies have a precise understanding of their customers’ expectations and requirements and focus precisely on them. On the one hand, they change the entire communication and enable their customers to interact at any time and via their preferred channel – analog or digital – in order to buy products or receive support. On the other hand, they are responding to the desire for products that are as individual as possible. The new technologies are enablers here. However, for them to develop their full potential, the culture in companies must first continue to change – at all hierarchical levels and across all specialist areas. The IT departments will become initiators and motivators.

Platform instead of pipeline

Business models are also increasingly coming into focus. What is particularly interesting is that the value creation logic is being questioned. Until now, the pipeline model has prevailed. A company procures individual parts and preliminary products, uses them to manufacture the product it has developed and sells it to the customer. The better this linear value creation process is mastered, the more efficient the individual process steps are, the higher the quantity sold and the higher the price per unit, the higher the profit. In the course of digitalization, the platform model is now being discussed more and more frequently. Not least because many of the up-and-coming start-ups are successful in this way – for example Airbnb and Uber. Both companies do not manufacture any products themselves, but simply bring providers and consumers together – and get paid for it. The larger their network becomes and the more deals are concluded, the higher their profits. However, platform models that focus on physical products are also conceivable. In future, for example, machines could be developed so openly that it is easy for external providers to access data from the machines or transfer data to them, integrate additional components or connect services. A rethink is also required here. It is not isolation that leads to success, but openness.

Network instead of pyramid

The basis for all activities in a digitalized world is the handling of growing data volumes. For manufacturing companies, the MES will play an important role as a link between the store floor and the commercial world. However, the framework conditions are currently changing. The automation pyramid is becoming an automation network – at least that is a widely held opinion. In principle, there is nothing wrong with this assessment, but it is worth taking a differentiated view. The pyramid is associated with the fact that information is always routed through all hierarchically organized systems. The order is created in the ERP system and then reaches the machine via MES, SCADA and PLC; machine and operating data flow in the opposite direction. This is actually comparatively rigid and inflexible. In the network, on the other hand, the individual components exchange data directly with each other. The ERP system then communicates directly with the systems on the store floor, for example. And the systems themselves are equipped with so much intelligence that they are not fundamentally dependent on a downstream system. The result: greater efficiency and flexibility.

It is certain that all new machines and systems will be able to network with each other and operate autonomously in the near future. After all, this is the core of the Internet of Things. However, this does not mean that downstream systems – and MES in particular – will become obsolete. This is because only they can combine data from multiple sources and condense it into insights. In order to achieve this, the MES of the near to medium future must fulfill two requirements: They must be closely interlinked with ERP systems, because these will continue to dominate the commercial sector in the foreseeable future. And they must have an open architecture that allows all external sources to be connected and functionalities to be integrated as required.