Industry 4.0 advantages in companies

How does Industry 4.0 affect companies? Advantages and disadvantages, how to implement it, etc.

We have already talked about Industry 4.0 and the technologies that are part of it in other posts . In this post we will talk about where the term Industry 4.0 arises and how it affects our companies and current business models.
The term Industry 4.0 arises from the fourth industrial revolution, or from the integration of new technologies and the digitization of factories and companies. It is basically about creating smart factories using new technologies.
Don’t fall into the mistake that new technologies and digitalization are only available to large companies. All types of companies can make changes related to Industry 4.0 to improve some part of their business. Probably, you have to ask yourself some questions to analyze certain things:

• At what point is my business?
• How am I going to make the change at the technological level??
• What improvement do I expect from the incorporation of Industry 4.0 technology: costs, cycle time, reliability, quality, flows …?
• Do I have the capacity and / or knowledge to take care of everything?
• Do I need to outsource?

All these questions will help focus the changes in the right way.

Industry 4.0 advantages for companies

Without a doubt, Industry 4.0 can bring many benefits to today’s businesses, regardless of the sector in which they are located. The application of these new technologies will greatly improve productivity and  will help to have a better resource management. The analysis of a large amount of data, which provides the Big Data tools allows, for example, to make more efficient decisions and based on real information. Of course, production processes become more efficient , which makes it more competitive in the manufacture of products and in the provision of services. Also related to production, the manufacturing  times of new products are reduced. The processes are more optimized and, for example, with 3D printing prototypes can be manufactured very quickly and at a low cost. The defects and errors in production processes are also reduced thanks to artificial intelligence and vision systems installed at different points of production, which automatically inspect the products and obtain information that allows them to be optimized. These are just some of the benefits that can be obtained by applying small changes in companies, related to these technologies.

Industry 4.0 disadvantages for companies

Gradually, the change in the companies will be larger, the technologies and forms of work related to Industry 4.0 will be present in the factories and business models. More qualified personnel will be needed to manage these changes, but there is no doubt that this will provide more flexibility and efficiency to meet the needs of customers in today’s market. As an example of flexible manufacturing, robots and humans will work together in the same workspace and for a common goal.
At ATRIA we work with different technologies related to Industry 4.0: Artificial intelligence and computer vision systems, augmented reality, 3D printing and collaborative robotics.
Do you want to apply Industry 4.0 in any of your Projects? Contact us!