{"id":170,"date":"2019-08-13T13:52:25","date_gmt":"2019-08-13T13:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/logistics-manufacturing\/?p=170"},"modified":"2019-08-13T13:52:26","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T13:52:26","slug":"beyond-industry-4-0-preparing-sme-manufacturing-systems-for-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/logistics-manufacturing\/beyond-industry-4-0-preparing-sme-manufacturing-systems-for-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Beyond Industry 4.0 \u2013 Preparing SME Manufacturing Systems for the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PARC insight by Dr Daniel Eyers, Senior Lecturer Manufacturing Systems Management at Cardiff University <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking to future proof your business? Good news – you don\u2019t necessarily need to invest in Industry 4.0.\u00a0 In this blog post, written exclusively for PARC, Dr Daniel Eyers emphasizes the importance of getting the fundamentals right, before thinking about the expensive (and potentially unnecessary) manufacturing technologies of Industry 4.0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every day my\nmailbox is bombarded with Industry\/Industrie 4.0. Whether it be new government\nstrategies, calls for academic research, hot-off-the press consultancy reports,\nindustry newsletters, or yet-another academic review; Industry 4.0 is everywhere.\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Industry 1.0\nbrought scale to manufacturing, thanks to the generation of steam from coal\nthat powered both production and transportation. Industry 2.0 was a\ntechnological revolution, with electricity and telecommunications paving the\nway for modern production lines. Industry 3.0 represented a digital revolution,\nwith the increasing application of computing in the monitoring, management, and\ncontrol of manufacturing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Industry\n4.0 we have the connection of all data and production systems of the entire factory,\nincorporating a wide range of concepts such cyber-physical systems, cloud\ncomputing, and Internet of Things (IoT) \u2013the basic premise is manufacturing excellence,\nachieved through sophisticated, interconnected, high-tech manufacturing\nsystems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interestingly,\nthe only place where I am not consistently bombarded by Industry 4.0 is in my\nwork with manufacturing SMEs. I work with firms from across a wide range of\nindustry sectors, and not one of them has Industry 4.0 on their strategic\nradar. This is not because they are sleeping through this next industrial\nrevolution \u2013 several are extremely attuned \u2013 it is just that Industry 4.0 is\nsimply \u2018too big\u2019 for them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll give\nyou an example; when a CAD diagram is already overkill for a welding operator (why\nnot just use a simple sketch?), what actual value would an augmented reality\nsystem bring? Because if it doesn\u2019t add value right now, adopting the concepts\nand technologies of tomorrow\u2019s Industry 4.0 will simply increase costs and threaten\nprofitability today. This is a critical consideration – SMEs typically lack the\ndeep pockets of larger manufacturers and cannot easily absorb the burden of additional\ninvestment costs that do not yield at least some short-term benefits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolutions\nare always difficult, and not everyone survives. Those who do not engage with\nthe revolution may be left behind, as we saw in the demise of cottage textile trades\nwith the industrialization of Industry 1.0 (and subsequently the demise of some\nof these factories who didn\u2019t quickly adopt electric power in Industry 2.0).  But do all companies need to fully embrace\nthe current revolution and the incumbent technologies? And how do we even know\nwhich technologies will yield a competitive advantage in Industry 4.0? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nmanufacturing SMEs, I think preparedness for the future is often a better\nstrategy than subservient engagement with the latest trend. Because Industry 4.0\nwill continue to be hugely important to manufacturing, just until Industry 5.0\nusurps it.  After that we\u2019ll probably see\na new noun: just like movies, manufacturing initiatives do not seem to be particularly\nsuccessful in their sixth instalment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can\u2019t predict\nwhat technology will underpin the nth <\/sup>manufacturing revolution, but given\nthe previous episodes, my expectation is that it will be based on even more\ninterconnectivity and enhancement for elements of the manufacturing system<\/em>\n\u2013 and that the best preparedness SMEs can have is to focus on continuous\nimprovement of their manufacturing systems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Systems\nmatter in manufacturing. Any single given resource may offer an enormous\npotential for a firm \u2013 but unless it can be exploited alongside the other\nresources in manufacturing, the overall benefits may not be fully utilized. For\nexample, 3D printing is a big part of Industry 4.0. 3D printers supposedly<\/em>\nenable enormous flexibility in manufacturing \u2013 allowing firms to produce\nindividually customized products to meet individual customer demands. Except\nthey don\u2019t<\/a>: they are reliant on all other parts of the system\n(including other technologies and labour), and this in turn constrains their\nflexibility. The\nflexibility of the system is therefore very much subject to the flexibility of\nits component parts<\/a>, and any part that is particularly inflexible\nwill constrain the whole system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These\nfindings hold for other manufacturing contexts. A milk-bottling system is only\nas fast as its slowest component process; bottlenecks exist everywhere. The\ncosts of a laser-etching system will be significantly influenced by the expense\nincurred from its component processes. Manufacturing systems are an integrated\nwhole: they may have subsystems which interact with the whole system, but\nthe key idea is that the system is organized to optimize some weighted function\nof its objectives.<\/a>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have yet\nto encounter a manufacturing SME with excellent organization of its\nmanufacturing systems. There have been opportunities to make significant\nimprovements in each firm, the vast majority of which did not necessitate\nenormous technological leaps. Tools such as the Quick\nScan supply chain diagnostic methodology<\/a> can be enormously helpful\nin identifying current and future states of the system, from which strategic\nplans can be developed. Do these plans\nneed to embrace all the principles of Industry 4.0? My experience suggests not.\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\nspecific technologies such as Cloud Computing, RFID, and aspects of IoT have\nthe potential for realistic systems enhancement in the short term. Other technologies\nwill take much longer to gain significance for SMEs, and some will almost\ncertainly wither before becoming useful. Risk-savvy\nSMEs will probably not be bleeding-edge adopters in Industry 4.0, or any of the\nrevolutions that follow.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That industry 4.0 is a temporal\nphenomenon (and something that will eventually pass) is important to remember.<\/strong> Already there are musings over\nIndustry 5.0, even before the current revolution has taken hold. To predict a\nfuture beyond Industry 4.0, it helps to remember the past. Whilst leaps in\ntechnology have fuelled each of the previous industrial revolutions, in manufacturing\nthe strategic gain has always been in the integration and organization of these\nchanges within the existing systems \u2013 initially within the physical confines of\nindividual factories, and subsequently within supply chains and supply networks.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whatever technology comes next, foundations in effective manufacturing systems organization will be critical, and SMEs should give ongoing focus to these, regardless of their intent to participate in the revolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Author:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dr Daniel Eyers<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Dr Daniel\nEyers is a Lecturer in Manufacturing Systems Management at Cardiff\nUniversity.  His research explores the\nimplications of advanced manufacturing and information technologies for modern\nOperations Management, particularly in terms of low volume and customized\nmanufacturing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

eyersdr@cardiff.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent\nPublications:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n