Understanding Industry 4.0: The Basics of Manufacturing 4.0

This page explores Industry 4.0, also known as Manufacturing 4.0, and its evolution. It covers the building blocks of Industry 4.0 and provides a link to the advantages and disadvantages of Industry 4.0 cyber-physical systems.

Figure 1 illustrates the revolutions in the manufacturing industry.

• Industry 1.0: Mechanical production including railways and the steam engine (1760-1840).
• Industry 2.0: Mass production leveraging electricity and assembly lines (1870-1940).
• Industry 3.0: Manufacturing of electronic products like computers, semiconductor devices, personal computing devices, and the internet (1960-2010).
• Industry 4.0: The current era of cyber-physical systems, creating the “smart factory.”

Figure 1: Industry 4.0 Evolution

As shown in Figure 1, the level of complexity increases with each evolution from Industry 1.0 to Industry 4.0, incorporating more advanced features.

What is Industry 4.0?

Industry 4.0 refers to the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It’s made possible by Cyber-Physical Systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), and cloud computing.

Figure 2: Industry 4.0 - A Cyber-Physical System

Figure 2 depicts a Cyber-Physical System (CPS), a system of collaborating computational elements that control physical entities. Operations within a CPS are monitored and controlled by computing and communication cores. This allows for the addition of capabilities to physical systems by integrating computing/communication with physical processes. As mentioned, this leads to the vision of the smart factory.

In this modular architecture, Cyber-Physical Systems perform the following functions:

• Monitor physical processes.
• Create a virtual copy of these processes.
• Make decentralized decisions.
• Communicate and cooperate with one another and humans in real-time using IoT.
• Offer and utilize services via the Internet of Services (IoS) by participants in the value chain.

Figure 3: Industry 4.0 Blocks

Figure 3 illustrates the building blocks of Industry 4.0:

• Augmented Reality
• Additive Manufacturing of complex parts
• Cyber Security
• Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)
• Horizontal and Vertical System Integration
• Production line simulation
• Robot-assisted production
• Big Data Analytics

Six design principles have facilitated the creation of Industry 4.0-based smart factories: interoperability, virtualization, decentralization, real-time capability, service orientation, and modularity.