Industry 4.0 puts the focus on technological development and is based on the adoption of advanced technologies and technologies of the digital world in companies as a means of improving their productivity and competitiveness and ultimately achieving their operational excellence.
What is clear is that it is necessary to invest according to the capabilities of the company, starting as we have mentioned in the previous digitization levels, by establishing some bases and infrastructures for the treatment of information and continuing with those developments that may have a greater impact on the company.
The investment in Industry 4.0 will be recovered from the benefits that can be achieved, being clear that the value generated by the implementation of these technologies may originate in different aspects depending on the application. There is, therefore, no single value, but different ‘values’ that together contribute to the total benefit provided.
Values that stand out in the application of Industry 4.0 technologies:
- Value derived from the availability of real-time information that enables faster and more informed decision making.
- Value derived from the possibilities of identifying the products in the process or warehouse, through their monitoring and traceability.
- Value derived from improvements in worker safety that can be achieved by sensing hazardous areas and by the workers themselves.
- Value derived from an improvement in operations and material flows thanks to robotization and sensorization.
- Value derived from reductions in energy consumption and efficiency losses from a better understanding of the processes.
- Values derived from new processes and operations that are now possible thanks to new technologies.
- Value derived from improvements in maintenance and increased availability of machines thanks to the possibilities of predictive maintenance based on sensorization and automated data analysis.
- Value derived from new functionalities in products , for example connectivity.