Industry 4.0: The future of manufacturing
Technological developments, over the years have driven dramatic increases in industrial productivity since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. In the times since, however, these advancements were only incremental, in comparison to the ground-breaking innovations that have occurred in the IT Industry. Now, though, the rapid globalization over the past has led to establishment of many new competitors, competing for the resources necessary for success. Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution or the Techie Industrial Revolution It will have a higher impact and require less implementation of new equipment (40-50%)1. Industry 4.0 is enabled by disruptive technologies that are expected to change the manufacturing sector by 2025 through significant innovation2.

The first industrial revolution involved saw the adoption of steam power. The second industrial revolution or Industry 2.0 was all about the rise of electricity and the 3rd revolution was the digital revolution when electronics broke the market.
The transformation to the new age Industry entails the inclusion of sensors, machines, workpieces, and IT solutions along the value chains and beyond a single enterprise. This will enable the connected systems to interact for predicting failure and adapting to such circumstances. Consequently, manufacturing productivity increases, fosters industrial growth and in turn will change the face of competition in the factories of the future.
Building Blocks of Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 is a optimized and automated workflow, driving efficiencies and changing the nature of relationships between man and machine * Big Data & Analytics: The recent surge in the need for meaningful data in the manufacturing sector has induced a pressing need for big data. Big Data has the potential to optimize production quality, by collecting data from equipment and making decisions in the real time * Autonomous Robots: Flexible, interconnected and autonomous robots have and will be used by manufacturers for complex tasks, which has driven industry practices of manufacturing to a whole new level in terms of cost benefits and efficiency * Simulation: The ground breaking 3-D printers are used in simulations of products, materials and production processes, the data which can be used to aid in real time decision making. * The Internet Of Things: It is the the network of physical objects or "things" embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and connectivity to enable objects to exchange data with the manufacturer, operator and/or other connected devices based on the infrastructure of ITU's Global Standards Initiative. IoT allows objects to be sensed and controlled remotely across existing network infrastructure, creating opportunities for more direct integration between the physical world and computer-based systems. IoT is expected to offer advanced connectivity of devices, systems, and services that goes beyond machine-to-machine communications (M2M) * Cloud computing refers to the practice of transitioning computer services such as computation or data storage to multiple redundant offsite locations available on the Internet, which allows application software to be operated using internet-enabled devices. * Horizontal and Vertical System Integration: Companies, suppliers, and customers are rarely closely linked. Functions from the enterprise to the shop floor level are not fully integrated. Even engineering itself from products to plants to automation lacks complete integration. But with Industry 4.0, companies, departments, functions, and capabilities will become much more cohesive, as cross-company, universal data-integration networks evolve and enable truly automated value chains. * Additive Manufacturing: Companies have just begun to adopt additive manufacturing, such as 3-D printing, which they use mostly to prototype and produce individual components. With Industry 4.0, these additive-manufacturing methods will be widely used to produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages, such as complex, lightweight designs. High-performance, decentralized additive manufacturing systems will reduce transport distances and stock on hand. * Augmented Reality: Augmented-reality-based systems support a variety of services, such as selecting parts in a warehouse and sending repair instructions over mobile devices. These systems are currently in their infancy, but in the future, companies will make much broader use of augmented reality to provide workers with real-time information to improve decision making and work procedures.
Siegfried Dais and Henning Kagermann Design principles: * Interoperability: the ability of cyber-physical systems (such as painting robots, automated conveyors), humans and Smart Factories to connect and communicate with each other via the Internet of Things and the Internet of Services * Decentralization: the ability of cyber-physical systems within Smart Factories to make decisions on their own * Real-Time Capability: the capability to collect and analyses data and provide the derived insights immediately * Service Orientation: offering of services via the Internet of Services * Modularity: flexible adaptation of Smart Factories to changing requirements by replacing or expanding individual modules * Virtualization: a virtual copy of the Smart Factory which is created by linking sensor data (from monitoring physical processes) with virtual plant models and simulation model
The basic gist of Industry 4.0 is that by connecting machines, work pieces and systems in a holistic manner, we are creating intelligent networks along the entire value chain that can co-ordinate with each other autonomously. Moreover, it will also make machines capable of predicting failures and trigger maintenance processes autonomously
The current manufacturing infrastructure that is in place relies heavily on robots and humans. This can lead to situations which can result in production loss, and customers who have to wait more to get his product delivered. In today’s industry environment, deliverance is the key to success and all the market players are trying to achieve as much performance as possible to increase their profit as well as their market penetration The utilization of big data and analytics for making sense of the current condition and detecting faults and failures is an important aspect to be researched. In an Industry 4.0 factory, in addition to condition monitoring and fault diagnosis, sensors in components and systems are able to provide management with more insight on the status of the factory and thereby enabling them to make an informed decision. Furthermore, peer-to-peer comparison and fusion of health information from various components provides a precise health prediction of components and system levels and forces factory management to trigger required maintenance at the best possible time to reach just-in time maintenance and gain near zero downtime.
This is where new age information and communication technologies like Big Data or Cloud Computing will increase productivity, quality and flexibility within the manufacturing industry. On this context, data has to be processed with advanced tools (analytics and algorithms) to generate meaningful information from the plethora of meaningless data. Moreover, to maximize optimal capacity, the industry needs to

The fourth industrial revolution will be a hybrid of disruptive innovations that have percolated into the manufacturing sector. The world stands at the cusp of revolution in many areas of manufacturing viz. Machine safety, Assembly line integration, System health monitoring, Industry value chain, Workers (Ergonomics) and productivity This is a drastic leap from the current effective though soon-to-be obsolete standards of the manufacturing industry, as a result of which the manufacturing industry has changed completely. In the years to come, factories will be the fertile ground in terms of breakthroughs and applications of disruptive innovation.