It can be said that technology in today’s world industry has already settled well there. It is hardly plausible that company’s planning and designing process are the only things involved in great deal of computing, but in most cases also the production requires automation. Highly specialized production lines increasingly are capable of working in almost bugless mode, what recently had to be performed by operators. It allows not only for increasing efficiency as well as the safeness by reducing the work what human can actually do worse.
But it is just a beginning. Automation may not be used in fewer and fewer profession. Engineers are facing new tasks to improve production. Present trend shows that we strive to total automation. Therefore, request for specialists, who are able to develop and exploit those solutions, rises. This creates a clear opportunity for new jobs and economic growth.
The present state of affairs is referred to as a new Industrial Revolution. This phrase was first used in Germany in year 2011. And it is hard to disagree with. Computers became for us the same impulsion as steam for manufacturers of the nineteenth century. Current revolution in its intentions seeks to popularize highly automated, intelligent factories, what includes cyber-physical systems, the IOT and cloud computing. This creates new challenges - especially for the energy sector, whose high demand growth is already felt today. At the moment, the idea of total automation is still fading.
What role will cloud computing play in this process? Definitely very important. Internet Stuff (IoT) seems to be the first major area that could be a common part of industry and IT during the revolution. Companies like Amazon, meeting market expectations, launch additional tools within Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service services that help implement IoT solutions. Another area where cloud plays an important role is machine learning. Self-learning algorithms need high computational power that can provide.
The largest project in Industry 4.0 as of July 2013 is the BMBF leading-edge cluster "Intelligent Technical Systems OstWestfalenLippe". Another major project is the BMBF project RES-COM, as well as the Cluster of Excellence "Integrative Production Technology for High-Wage Countries". In 2015, the European Commission started the international Horizon 2020 research project CREMA (Providing Cloud-based Rapid Elastic Manufacturing based on the XaaS and Cloud model) as a major initiative to foster the Industry 4.0 topic. In a study “Cloud: Opening up the Road to Industry 4.0” conducted by Oracle, it appears that 62% EMEA companies implement or plan to use robotic technology and 60% consider AI. Such companies will implement model of integrated cloud, that will allow to integration of all areas of production and data processing.
Among the advantages of cloud integration in the production process are the above mentioned flexibility in introducing new solutions in the enterprise and the ability to reduce costs. Apart from aspects in business and technology, there is also a chance to profit in environmental areas: CO2 reduction and social: new opportunities for marketing and advertising.
There are also obvious concerns. Especially in the area of security. In addition, it raises the question of the role of man in this puzzle - will computers be able to take away our jobs? Experts calm down, pointing out that in nature nothing is lost. Wherever one dies and jobs die, new ones are emerging, tailored to market requirements.
• IT security issues, need to open up previously closed production shops
• Reliability and stability needed for critical machine-to-machine communication (M2M)
• Need to maintain the integrity of production processes
• Need to protect industrial knowhow
• Lack of adequate skill-sets to expedite the march towards fourth industrial revolution
• General reluctance to change by stakeholders
• Loss of many jobs to automatic processes and IT-controlled processes, especially for lower educated parts of society
It is clear that the revolution is still in its early stages. Industry is another area where cloud computing and its capabilities can play a key role. In many areas, we use these facilities today. Therefore, the future of Industry 4.0 is even more interesting.
