Alvin Toffler, an American writer and futurist, said: “The first rule of survival is clear: Nothing is more dangerous than yesterday's success. He also advised companies to review every aspect of their business at least every three years and strategically discard, not fix, everything that is unfit for the situation they are in in order to survive. “In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it's the fast fish which eats the slow fish,” Klaus Schwabthe, founder of World Economic Forum, said at the World Economic Forum held in Davos eight years ago.
Less than 10 years on, the pace of changes in today’s industrial structure has accelerated much faster, ushering in an era of “prosumers.” The term prosumer was coined as the distinction between producers and consumers is blurring. Prosumers are not passive consumers who simply select and consume goods that are put on the market. Prosumers are active players who create services and products tailored to their needs, tastes and desires. We are now approaching the 4th industrial revolution.
The steam engine drove the 1st industrial revolution; the second industrial revolution came in the early 20th century, when Henry Ford mastered the moving assembly line, therefore ushering in the age of mass production. The third industrial revolution has been led by the digitisation of manufacturing. The fourth industrial revolution is driven by automated production using industrial robots, bioenergy, ubiquitous computing, mobile supercomputing, artificial intelligence (AI) and the IoT. These new technologies cause the physical, digital, and biological worlds to continue to converge. The convergence of ICTs and manufacturing is heralding a new era of innovation and radical changes.
The fourth industrial revolution, spearheaded by the US and Germany, is not just an extension of the third industrial revolution. The fourth industrial revolution distinguishes itself from the previous revolutions by boasting distinctively improved production speeds and taking the reach of technologies and effects on systems to new heights.
Compared to previous industrial revolutions, the fourth industrial revolution is disruptively fast-paced so that the size of industries is increasing exponentially and industrial transformations are taking place rapidly. The fourth industrial revolution is sweeping across all industries, shaking up the status quo.
We’ve already seen autonomous cars equipped with AI driving people around. Investors are pouring money into drones controlled by software. In particular, computing power and the availability of vast amounts of data are bringing innovative changes to the way new drugs are developed.
Digitalized manufacturing technologies, based on the convergence of all the industrial technologies, interact with one another, affecting the way engineers, designers, architects, microbiologists and the human body work and the way all the products we consume are produced. Even computation in architectural design, the production of additives and materials engineering are all influenced by digitalized manufacturing technologies.
The fourth industrial revolution basically revolves around developing technology-based platforms (which can stay compatible with existing industry fundamentals) in consideration of economic demands and the balance between supply and demand.
Technology-based platforms, easily accessible by smartphones, integrate people, assets and data. In the process, new services and products can be created.
Companies that use new platforms featuring digital functions can furnish a wide range of new services in a swift manner, from doing the laundry, shopping, household chores, parking, massaging and travelling to before-sales services for machinery or plants (which, unlike after-sales services, effectively help reduce costs and the risk of potentially disastrous results by providing all the information in advance), healthcare and flexible services based on the prediction of environmental disasters.
The fourth industrial revolution has the potential to raise the world’s income levels and improve the quality of our lives. Ever-evolving technologies will translate to the production and distribution of new products and help double your personal efficiency, bringing more fun to our lives. Today, we can book a flight ticket and a cab online, make purchases online and listen to music or watch movies in a remotely-controlled fashion. The continuing convergence of ICTs is set to continuously add novelty to our daily lives.
