The list is infinite and hugely depends on the research discipline you aim at. From a management point of view, adequate business models, high costs for implementation or inter-company collaboration remain a task. Social challenges rather encompass organizational transformation and fear of employees to be replaced. Legal aspects concern data posession and data privacy aspects. Computer science names data analytics and secure data transmission technologies. Further aspects relate to standardization of data transmission, model coupling or machine retrofitting with sensors or alike. Naturally, the list of unsolved issues can be extended from each discipline's point of view. For a brief overview from practical experience in the context of economic, ecological and social aspects, please see: Article Sustainable Industrial Value Creation: Benefits and Challeng...

From the perspective of an academic working to help business, particularly small businesses adopt digital technologies, the core issues are awareness of the opportunities that IR4.0 brings to a business and then the skills to implement technology in a way that provides benefits. This includes the necessary technical skills to implement a digital solution as well as the management of the changes that technologies can bring to the operation of a company. There are of course a mriad of technical, data security and other issues to contend with, as has been pointed out.

Sections 6 and 7 of the attached provide a useful government perspective.

Hello,

We are aiming for implementation since 2011 at fraunhofer and the main issue is as always the human factor. Many times all roadmaps are defined, distributed and accepted and 6 months later all efforts are gone. So in my opinion focusing on long term implementation of smaller I40 applications including monitoring and most important of all including defined KPIs for measuring the implememtation status brings much better results than presenting fancy solutions no company will ever go through with.

BR

Dear Aleksandar,

The introduction of Industry 4.0 needs several methods and tools to be sustainable. In different workshops with industry as well as academics we have seen that the different steps can be summarized as:

1) Vision (Vision of Digital Transformation in the company)

2) Commitment (all roadmaps are worthless if there is not enough commitment by the top management)

3) Tool boxes to understand which are the existing/available I4.0 concepts

4) Assessment models to check the own position

5) Roadmaps to define which I4.0 concepts are most suitable for the individual company and showing the right way to implement them

6) Pilot projects and case studies (good pilot projects are the best promotion for such implementation initiatives).

Best regards

Erwin Rauch

Apparently, we are now living in the era of the fourth technological revolution, known as Industry 4.0.

The previous three technological revolutions:

1. The industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, determined mainly by the industrial application of the invention of a steam engine.

2. Electricity era of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century.

3. The IT revolution of the second half of the twentieth century determined by computerization, the widespread use of the Internet and the beginning of the development of robotization.

The current fourth technological revelation, known as Industry 4.0, is motivated by the development of the following factors:

- artificial intelligence,

- cloud computing,

- machine learning,

- Big Data database technologies,

- Internet of Things.

On the basis of the development of these IT instruments and technologies, business analytics of companies such as Business Intelligence and the above-mentioned areas have been dynamically developing in recent years.

In view of the above, I turn to you with the following question: In what direction will the current technological revolution, known as Industry 4.0, develop?

Please, answer, comments. I invite you to the discussion.

I think a critical evaluation of Industry 4.0 should start with the concept as such. Manfred Broy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Broy), who coined the term before others popularized it, expressed for instance "that he himself disliked it very much" at a Peter Pribilla Foundation meeting in Rome 2016 that I attended. So, trace the concept back to its origins, before the spin doctors take over and make it viral and über-popular, and I think you get a good start of a critical take on the matter

There is great difficulty in understanding the concept. I have noticed that many managers of large companies confuse the terms Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0. At some points they intertwine, but the technical support of both is different. In Brazil many initiatives, both I4.0 and Digital Transformation, of which I had the opportunity to work in the automotive industry are entitled Proofs of Concept (PoCs). The vast majority of them are being applied in manufacturing and the supply chain, two areas that have enormous performance gaps in the country. However, the procedure adopted has not been effective. Although there are significant results, there is still a need for methodological improvement and in-depth knowledge of the technologies being worked on. We have a long way to go. In my opinion, academics will play a fundamental role in solidifying these concepts so that they become more comprehensible to the majority of the population (at least this is a consensus of brazilian researchers).

I believe it is a matter of investment capacity in balance with the financial capacity for keeping the factory running. Heavy industry require high and constant sales. In other words keep the production running in a maximum capacity to pay for it. If the context that wants to adopt industry 4.0 do not have the consumption capacity to adopt it (economies of scale), it would fail.

The adoption of heavy industry can not be pushed, it needs to be naturally required.

There are alternatives, in terms of innovation, to keep up-to-date but without adopting heavy industry.

This is a small article I wrote about it...

https://medium.com/@jimenezmorenopablo/lite-housing-industry-3407e0b217c9

Very interesting question; using technology itself bring many advantages and create new issues and disadvantages at the same time. For example social media and its depression among young generation. I believe, Industry 4.0 can impact negative, such as social responsibility, ethics, policy, regulations and etc.

Good day

Refer the following:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BIJ-09-2018-0281/full/html