Promoted content: Keeping tomorrow’s Industry 4.0 factories productive and safe

The technologies that comprise what has come to be known as “Industry (or ‘Industrie’) 4.0” have been the subject of much attention – almost as much, it might be said, as that other overworked expression, “Internet of Things”. Unlike some previous “buzz-word” topics, however, this is not a futuristic, months- or years-away matter but is happening “for real” at impressive, and accelerating, speed.

Factory owners and managers are being driven in this direction by several distinct forces. There is the ever-present demand to increase efficiency and productivity, and set against that is the realisation that the era of low-cost, labour-intensive, offshore (from the Western perspective) manufacturing is drawing to a close.

This should not have come as a surprise; in societies that have been industrialising at a faster rate than ever before seen, the personal aspirations of those workforces were sure to follow the same trajectory. Willingness to perform repetitive tasks for low rates of reward quickly disappears. At the same time, the – most welcome – increase in prosperity drives demand for manufactured goods, and for more product versions specific to new markets.