From Industry 1.0 to 4.0

This contemporary industrial revolution is based on digital integration and tool interconnection in design methods. Against the tide of mass production (Industry 2.0), promoted by Fordism and Taylorism, and the automation of the production chain (Industry 3.0); Industry 4.0 seeks to rationalize production in an intelligent way: designing right the first time around.

The fundamental difference with this method is that the machine no longer replaces man, but redefines itself as a new tool. The evolution of technical needs (computer-assisted) has created a new Vitruvian Man, with the human and the machine at the center of the same collaborative universe.

Vitruvian Man，Leonardo da Vinci，1487

At the dawn of the development of Artificial Intelligence, the Human must no longer rely solely on his knowledge, nor on the capacity of the machine to tirelessly produce, but must combine relevant knowledge and controlled production, to achieve his missions, under the best conditions.

Industry 4.0 – What is it?

Combining cost savings, rational production and consumer appeal through unique products, this intelligent production uses a large amount of data, in real time, to adapt to the needs of maintenance methods, test processes, quality disparities, etc.

In a non-exhaustive way, and in connection with the challenges of laboratory management, Industry 4.0 tends to:

Industry 4.0 – What we need to focus?

In addition, because communication (even between objects) is the foundation of this philosophy, it is necessary to develop a number of standards and normalizations so that machine signals are translated into information, and transmitted to the network.

If the revolution does not lie in technical achievement, it is the complementarity between technologies and the maturity of the User that allows the development of these practices. Thus, potentially, this industrial revolution reinforces the next phase of human evolution: Homo Connectus.

Therefore, the combination of the increasing complexity of laboratory needs with the evolution of new production methods highlights challenges, sometimes already existing, but increasingly exacerbated.

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