Industry 4.0 - The Next Industrial Revolution

Back in pre-industry era, steam machines were the ancestors used as for any industry work. As time passes by, abundant of computers gradually begin to replace humans. Nowadays, computers and automation are linked to robotics which can perform better than humans do in certain aspects – Industry 4.0. The Germany Government was the one who proposed Industry 4.0, initially in 2013. Somehow, the factory must have all these characteristics to be nominated as Industry 4.0 including interoperability, information transparency, technical assistance and decentralized decision making. Interoperability here is related much to the computer, it must have the quality to exchange and information utilization. Then to make sure there will be no hidden secrets nor information, the system needs to form a virtual copy of the physical, using sensor data. The humans must be able to receive any data from the computer if it is hard for them to decide on anything.

Lastly, the cyber-physical systems should be capable in making any decision on their own. By contrast, there is a few of hardships of human nature from the existence of Industry 4.0. People who are working in this industry must be equipped with the latest technical skills and they must be able to tackle all the current technologies which its progress is very fast compared to 1990- before. Moreover, it would be more difficult to the elders who were born before 1980 as they must embrace all the internet things. Hence, the company needs to do an investment in educating these people; they need to spend some bulks on educating their staff. Lastly, industry 4.0 seems to be convenient despite all of the challenges as there many advantages to the industry.

From Malaysia’s perspective, there are still not many people who are aware with Industry 4.0. The researchers show that there is approximately only 30% of manufactures who realize and know what is Industry 4.0. To tackle this problem, our government has built German-Malaysian Institute. This institute will be a center for people to become more innovative as it is being equipped with the current production concepts, and these concepts are inspired by German Industry 4.0 standards. As a footnote, every country’s progress of Industry 4.0 would not be the same, Japan’s progress might be way faster than other Asian countries. Then, there are some criteria being illustrated by Mr .Haddadin in ensuring machines to be smart, interactive and convenient. The current technologies will surely give big impacts on industry and community, enabling us to progress forward like other first-class country. Soon, there will be lots of robots being invented which can communicate with humans like us. Although this idea may freak some people out as they are not ready yet, but they will actually improve quality of one’s life. People need to get rid of the idea that robots are costly and can harm their bank as Malaysia is trying to make it convenient for everyone in the future.