Africa Digital Economy Forum

Industry 4.0 is about the significant transformation taking place in the way goods are produced and delivered. Moving toward industrial automation and the flexible factory. To stay competitive, factories and warehouses must leverage the industrial internet of things (IIoT) and digitalization to become much more agile and efficient.

While industries have automated many processes, secure wireless connectivity empowers factory automation, making industrial automation possible on a much larger scale. By creating a digital foundation, industrial automation will increase productivity and performance.

Huge gains await industries that cut the cord and go wireless. Wireless cellular connectivity supports the business outcomes that the industry expects from Industry 4.0. For instance, manufacturing enables flexible production by allowing smart factories to rapidly change over production lines to shorten lead times.

The transition to Industry 4.0 will depend on the successful adoption of many new technologies. To accelerate smart manufacturing, digital twins of machines and operations will be a necessity, as well as factory automation and real-time control of equipment and tasks.

Industry 4.0 will help make smart machines smarter, factories more efficient, processes less wasteful, production lines more flexible and productivity higher.

Built on the foundation of smart, secure, wireless connectivity there are opportunities to extend machine life through predictive maintenance, support rapid material handling, monitor every detail of the shop floor, and leverage collaborative robots simultaneously with mobile communication. This will help factories realize their goal of becoming fully automated factories.

Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/industry4-0