Industry 4.0

Industry 4.0 is the subset of the fourth industrial revolution [1] that concerns industry. The fourth industrial revolution encompasses areas that are not normally classified as industries, such as smart cities, for instance.
Although the terms “industry 4.0” and “fourth industrial revolution” are often used interchangeably, “industry 4.0” factories have machines that are augmented with wireless connectivity and sensors and connected to a system that can visualise the entire production line and make decisions on its own.
In essence, industry 4.0 is the trend towards automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies and processes, which include cyber-physical systems (CPS), the Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT), cloud computing, cognitive computing, and artificial intelligence.
The concept includes:
- Smart manufacturing
- Smart factory
- Lights out (manufacturing) also known as dark factories
- Industrial internet of things also called internet of things for manufacturing
Industry 4.0 fosters what has been called a “smart factory”. Within modularly structured smart factories, cyber-physical systems monitor physical processes, create a virtual copy of the physical world, and make decentralised decisions. Over the Internet of Things, cyber-physical systems communicate and cooperate with each other and with humans in real-time, both internally and across the organization’s services offered to and used by participants in the value chain.