CHAPTER 1Introduction to Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing
Anthony Tarantino, PhD
Introduction
The terms Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing (SM) are widely used today in industry, academia, and the consulting world to describe a major industrial transition underway. This transition is truly revolutionary in that it is now possible to create a digital twin of physical operations to improve operational efficiency and safety while fostering the automation of repetitive, labor-intensive, and dangerous activities.
Exhibit 1.1 shows the digital twin of a car engine and wheels in an exploded image above the physical car.1
EXHIBIT 1.1 Digital twin of a car engine and wheels
Source: Digitaler Zwillig/Shutterstock.com.
The first question most people ask is “What is the difference between Industry 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing?” The answer is that they are actually different phrases for the same thing. Klaus Schwab, president of the World Economic Forum, coined the phrase “Industry 4.0” in 2015.2 The argument for the name Industry 4.0 is that it captures the four phases of the Industrial Revolution dating back 400 years and highlighting the coming of cyber-physical systems. The advantage of the name Smart Manufacturing is that it is catchy and easy to remember. The first references to Smart Manufacturing date back to in 2014, so both names originated at about the same time.3
The ...
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