The Fourth Industrial Revolution is Among Us

The Fourth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion, also known as Indus­try 4.0, the Fac­to­ry of the Future, the Smart Fac­to­ry, the Indus­tri­al Inter­net, Indus­trie 4.0 and the 4^th Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion, is quick­ly emerg­ing and affect­ing our lives in new ways. It is help­ing to stream­line robots and their auto­mat­ed oper­a­tions, while also opti­miz­ing costs, turn­ing the poten­tial for enter­prise-wide auto­mat­ed busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion a reality. 

This 4^th indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion is the new fusion of automa­tion and data exchange that has cre­at­ed the per­fect envi­ron­ment for these ​“smart fac­to­ries.” It is a new con­nec­tiv­i­ty that com­bines and net­works all of the advance­ments in our tech­nol­o­gy world: intel­li­gent sys­tems (cyber-phys­i­cal sys­tems), the Inter­net of Things, and cloud com­put­ing. All of these items are pro­grammed to work togeth­er to enable humans and machines to coop­er­ate and com­mu­ni­cate, with each oth­er and among them­selves, in real time and even remote­ly. All of the devices, sys­tems, and peo­ple in the pro­duc­tion chain are linked and able to deliv­er data in the right form when­ev­er and wher­ev­er necessary. 

Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion 4.0 is con­tin­u­ing to prove that humans are unstop­pable in their inno­v­a­tive solu­tions towards a more effec­tive and intel­li­gent soci­ety. Since the begin­ning, humans have been on a con­stant search to con­tin­ue inno­vat­ing and find­ing new solu­tions that make cre­at­ing prod­ucts more afford­able, smarter, and also make our lives a lit­tle eas­i­er. The rev­o­lu­tions of the past (water and steam pow­er, elec­tric pow­er, and dig­i­tal pow­er) have tru­ly trans­formed the soci­ety, gov­ern­ing struc­tures, and human iden­ti­ties in which they are found. All of these indi­vid­ual rev­o­lu­tions have aid­ed the man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness­es to con­tin­ue their unvary­ing search for bet­ter and more eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble solutions. 

The First Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion began to use fos­sil fuels and mechan­i­cal pow­er for ener­gy sources. The Sec­ond Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion brought elec­tri­cal dis­tri­b­u­tion, wired and wire­less, and new forms of pow­er gen­er­a­tion. The Third Rev­o­lu­tion brought rapid advances in com­put­ing pow­er, enabling new ways of gen­er­at­ing, pro­cess­ing, and shar­ing infor­ma­tion. It also used these elec­tron­ics and IT sys­tems to fur­ther the automa­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing. All of these rev­o­lu­tions were dri­ven not only by the researchers, inven­tors, and design­ers, but more impor­tant­ly the peo­ple who adopt and employ them in their every­day lives. The arrival of Indus­try 4.0 real­ly has been a reflec­tion of the desires of its cit­i­zen’s and their choices.

So the new indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion we see today is real­ly of no sur­prise. Reliant on all of the rev­o­lu­tions that exist­ed before it, the Fourth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion is offer­ing entire­ly new capa­bil­i­ties for peo­ple and machines and ways in which tech­nol­o­gy becomes embed­ded with­in soci­eties. The lev­el of man­u­fac­tur­ing agili­ty could make it pos­si­ble to con­nect cus­tomer needs with the abil­i­ty for the com­pa­ny to deliv­er a prod­uct, poten­tial­ly on demand. Man­u­fac­tur­ers will be able to lis­ten and then act to bet­ter adapt to the con­sumer’s demands as they can access real-time intel­li­gence and ana­lyt­ics, on-demand. 

If we have the courage to take col­lec­tive respon­si­bil­i­ty for the changes under­way, and the abil­i­ty to work togeth­er to raise aware­ness and shape new nar­ra­tives, we can embark on restruc­tur­ing our eco­nom­ic, social and polit­i­cal sys­tems to take full advan­tage of emerg­ing technologies.

It is clear that the Fourth Indus­tri­al Rev­o­lu­tion is here to stay and if you are in the man­u­fac­tur­ing busi­ness, sit­ting on the side­lines is no longer a good idea. Robot­ic tech­nol­o­gy is well on its way to rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing how the suc­cess of a busi­ness, the ben­e­fits are increas­ing­ly clear and attain­able to those of all sizes. 

Robots​.com offers a wide range of new and refur­bished robots from Fanuc, Motoman, ABB, Uni­ver­sal Robots, and KUKA. Our experts are proud of the qual­i­ty and lev­el of ser­vice we pro­vide to our cus­tomers. We believe that we are tru­ly aid­ing the progress of the fourth indus­tri­al rev­o­lu­tion and increas­ing the advan­tages and ben­e­fits to all those involved with robot­ics! If you want more infor­ma­tion from the rep­re­sen­ta­tives at Robots​.com, con­tact them online or at 877−762−6881.