Industrial Development

Industrial 4.0 is a hot topic that everyone discussed nowadays. Internet of things, cloud computing, cyber physical systems and all kinds of fancy technologies sound promising, but what does it really mean.

Industrial 1.0

In 1698, the first steam engine was patented. The first commercially successful piston steam engine was developed year 1712. By 1781, the steam engine began to be used in many industrial. When it comes to 1797, steam engines became small enough to be used in smaller businesses. At the turn of the 19th century, steam-powered transport on both sea and land began to make its appearance, becoming more dominant as the century progressed.

Through the use of steam power and mechanization of production the first industrial revolution kick-off. The breakthrough increased human productivity 3~8 times. The steam-powered locomotive brings further massive changes because humans and goods could move greater distances then. The large-scale production of chemical was an important development during the industrial revolution as well.

Industrial 2.0

The fundamental principles of electricity generation were discovered in the 1820s. In 1870, the mechanical production of electric power began the second industrial evolution. However, that is not the only element.

The earliest linear and continuous assembly process build on 1803 to produce pulley blocks. In 1836, the Bridgewater Foundry improvise it with the used of railway and cranes. By early 1853, Richard Garrett & Sons build the first flow assembly line called 'The Long Shop', producing portable steam engines. The electric powered conveyor moving cans through a filling line in a canning factory was sketched on 1885.

7th of October 1913, the moving assembly line for the Ford Model T began to operate. Henry Ford took the idea of mass production from a slaughterhouse in Chicago: The pigs hung from conveyor belts and each butcher performed only a part of the task of butchering the animal. Henry Ford carried over these principles into automobile production and drastically altered it in the process. While before one station assembled an entire automobile, now the vehicles were produced in partial steps on the conveyor belt, significantly faster and at lower cost. Most important of all, the skill requirement for worker and training time reduce significantly.

Industrial 3.0

During 1958 to 1960, first programmable logic controller (PLC) manufacture by Allen-Bradley. In parallel the development of sensors become mature after world war 2. Since the introduction of these technologies, we are now able to automate an entire production process without or with minimum human assistance. That is the fundamental of third industrial revolution. It was further develop as computing capacity improved on the second half of the 20th century.

The idea of "digital manufacturing" became prominent in the early 1970s, with the release of Dr. Joseph Harrington's book, Computer Integrated Manufacturing. However, it was not until 1984 when computer-integrated manufacturing began to be developed and promoted by machine tool manufacturers.

Industrial 4.0

Summarize from the history, every stage of the industrial development are supported by two major elements, the technology breakthrough and the society needs. On the first stage, we put in machine into the equation of production to reduce the human effort. Second stage, we reduce the minimum skill requirement of human in the production to enlarge the group of work force able to put into the production line. That is also the period of world war 1 & 2 which create surge of demand.

Third stage, the aim was to move the human away from the first line of production so that they can concentrate more on the production control. The main reason to do so was to improve the production qualities, then further develop into variety production due to huge pressure on market competition.

If you look into that perspective, then the motivation for forth stage industrial development is about customer satisfaction maximization. Which means factories will no longer have any control of what should exist in the market but every pieces of production will be customize by the customer needs. Yes, the keyword of industrial 4.0 is customization.

Internet of things will enlarge the data capture, cloud and big data knowledge will support to predict accurately what is the needed. Technologies like 3D printing and so on will ensure capability of production line to meet the needs. Blockchain might also play a critical role on information securities and transaction.

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