Industry 4.0: Readiness & Challenges for Bangladesh to face the transition Mir Shariful Bashar ACS

INDUSTRY 4.0: READINESS & CHALLENGES FOR BANGLADESH TO FACE THE TRANSITION

Mir Shariful Bashar ACS

The concept of Industry 4.0 (4IR) assumes to be blurring the differences between the labor of people and the work of machines. Recent Technologies like: Analytics & Artificial Intelligence - is distorting the lines between virtual & Physical worlds. This revolution is going to transform largely the Industries, economics, society & individuals itself. It is a time when due to natural effects of the modern technology - man & machine come together & moreover, sometimes even competing each other seems to be taking over the places for obtaining results. Like: the first industrial revolution improved the operation of manufacturing, the second one introduced electricity into the industry and the third one automated the uniform tasks of line workers, and the fourth one improves information management and decision-making, which can be termed as the digital revolution. The fourth industrial revolution mostly differs from the previous ones with the fact that it relates to all the pitches of life. Within its own framework, the industry processes and commercializes the exchange of information among people, between people and objects and also among the objects themselves. The concept of the Internet of Things (IOT) allows for carrying out the order, production, implementation and delivery of the product without human participation at any time in the course of the process. So, the intention of this write-up is to present an approach to Industry 4.0, to indicate readiness for implementing the elements of this concept and to highlight the barriers as well as the challenges ahead - which may probably impede industrialization at enterprise level in the effective realization of a higher technological movement and organizational benchmark of success.

The term Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) was first coined by Prof. Klaus Schwab - which he explores in his book: “The Fourth Industrial Revolution”. According to his thoughts: “It is the Technological revolution that blurring the lines between the physical, digital & biological spheres”. If we break it down into our way - technologies like AI, Autonomous Vehicle, IOT are becoming ingrained in our day to day lives and even our bodies. We may think of voice-activated virtual assistants, face ID recognition or health care sensors etc. In our time the creation of the internet and its multifaceted uses resulted in a major shift in business. Tom Goodwin, Senior Vice President of Havas Media, dictates these shift by saying, “Uber, the biggest taxi company in the world, has no taxis themselves. The world's biggest social media platform Facebook doesn't make any content themselves. Alibaba, the world's most important retail platform does not have its own storage. And the world's largest housing provider airbnb does not have any real estate itself. And for these reasons, Klaus Schwab - says that, all these changes are signs of the fourth industrial revolution. He however refuses to accept these changes as merely an extension of the third industrial revolution. Because if you talk about the scope, rate of growth or impact of these revolutions - none of it is comparable to what happened during the third revolution. There is no historical evidence of such uncontested growth and it can be said that these changes are happening at an exponential rate. And these changes are affecting every inch of our lives from 360 degrees angles of our periphery.

How the 4IR relates the Transformation of our Societies:

The world is ever changing; in the nature we can see revolution everywhere that constructively supports the progress of the civilization in this universe from its very beginning. The upcoming technologies coming up with 4IR are bringing transformative impacts to the thinking, values, life and work of every person living in this society, enterprise, industry and nation in ways that have been massive until recently. These changes also evolve around every sphere of human life which includes the economic, social, cultural and psychological aspects. Every revolution in history established new norms and values that most suited & maintain legacy with each of those periods. This new revolution is a distinct one in terms of the ‘velocity, scope, and system’s impact.' It is said that the 4IR is encompassing every industry in every society; every country and the changes that are brought forth are

transforming the ‘entire eco-systems of production, management, and governance.'

The 4IR is profoundly affecting people’s lives as: AI and increased automation will see many types of jobs disappear. At the same time, entirely new categories of jobs are emerging. As the 4IR reshapes the future of work, sectors & industries must prepare their people for the new world order that lies ahead. This often means an increased focus on continual learning, building capacities and upgrades to new types of jobs, and a commitment to diversity. The societal impacts of the 4th Industrial Revolution also appear likely to be far-reaching, resulting not only in the social and economic impacts of the loss of many current jobs, but also fundamental - like: increasingly make it volatile and causes shifts in the nature of future jobs, and in the delivery models of public and private services. Here it may be mentioned that the new revolution will not only change the production and management process but will also change the way of life, thinking process, values and norms and overall psyche of mankind. So, we need to be extra careful regarding all its impacts.

What distinct the 4IR from the previous industrial revolutions, is that the pace of technological breakthroughs is unprecedented and the scale and complexity of the transformation are unlike any unseen before. The changes affect almost every industry in every country; the breadth and depth of the transformation demands changes in entire systems of production, management and public governance. The response cannot be left to state institutions alone but requires the active engagement of citizens, the private sector, the academy and civil society. People are likely to be healthier and live longer lives as our ability to modify human DNA continues to expand with due credits to the technological advancement. Moreover, it is anticipated that by 2040, robots will perform routine tasks in our homes and replace workers at our workplaces for hard, repetitive and dangerous production tasks. What these possible changes would mean in terms of policy - is a serious challenge: we have to find the human and financial resources to take care of a population that lives & works longer than before. Countries like Bangladesh will also face new employment and training challenges as the ways and purpose of working will transform and we can anticipate increased migration from countries that have lost the competitive advantage of their skilled labor. These changes are giving rise to what Susskind (2018) calls a digital-life-world: a new and different form of collective life, where technology affects social interactions, economy, human agency and the natural environment.

Impacts on overall Employment situations:

The characteristics of the fourth Industrial Revolution are destined to bring about different impacts on employment, which are no longer confined to single industry, but all. At the same time, a lot of jobs will disappear, but there will be a lot of new job requirements. It is expected that more than 65% of children entering primary school today will end up working in completely new jobs segment that currently do not exist when they enter the work life 15 years from now. RMG sector – the major export earning sector with all other labor intensive sectors of Bangladesh will be significantly impacted by the waves of 4IR.

So then, Who Loses, Who Gains?

Firstly, the jobs that are most at risk are those which “are on some level routine, repetitive and predictable”. Secondly, jobs that were once regarded as secure jobs, such as office workers, administrative personnel, and even law, will be hit hardest. Future technological advances will enable people to work more flexibly allowing people to work at home or in the office, and during working hours or off-duty hours. Employers, on their part, are also happy to choose this kind of flexible work pattern to reduce office expenses.

Jobs requiring a level of human interaction or guiding robot behavior will be very popular in the future, such as first-line supervisors of mechanics, installers, and repairers and first-line supervisors of transportation and material-moving machine and vehicle operators. The second area is occupations that involve building complex relationships with people, especially customer-facing jobs to supply personalized services, such as sales engineers, mental health counselors etc. These jobs need high interpersonal skills, teamwork and leadership, which computers cannot go beyond, such as dealing with coordination of people and communication, and divergent communication etc. will gain importance.

Impacts of 4IR on the Economy:

The 4IR is about a socio-technical transformation that has direct economic impacts. All the macroeconomic variables such as: GDP, Growth, Investment, Consumption, Savings, Employment, Trade and Inflation of a country will. affect it’s contiguous. The 4IR will change the nature of work across the industries and occupations. Economists have pointed out that the 4IR could create greater inequality in labor markets segments (Brynjolfsson & McAfee 2014). As automation substitutes the labor, the net displacement

of workers by machines might widen the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement mostly replace of workers by technology will result in a net increase of safe and rewarding jobs for employment (ibid.) The 4IR hence brings new tools for economic development, which creates both potential and poses risks for middle-income countries. However, due to the digital divide between high- and middle- or low-income countries, “discrepancies remain with regard to access to technologies but also with regard to effective use and socialization of big data and affiliated technologies” (Linkov et al. 2018: 3).

For a developing country like Bangladesh: Achievement of the SDGs is threatened by asymmetries in the collection and use of big data and power shifts between consumers and data driven organizations, as well as the widening knowledge and information gaps between high- and middle-income economies (ibid.).On the positive side, farmers could have better access to information on appropriate seed varieties (especially as climate change affects them), fertilizers, and pesticides could more easily optimize pricing with smoother access to market information. Big data can more rapidly track diseases, thereby reducing health hazards. At the same time, many traditional occupations are at risk. For example, driving – which is a major employer globally – will likely be disappearing as autonomous and driverless vehicles become increasingly common (Herweyer et al. 2017).

Handling the division between Have & Have not:

New technologies will change the means of social interaction. The pace and extent of data collection & usage has increased dramatically in recent years in people’s life. The exponential growth rate in computing and data analysis capacity is evident also in the development of world connectivity. Now the interesting question is, whether this faster rate of growth will continue or if we will reach a tipping point, where the poorer countries face obstacles for connectivity. Currently, about approximately 60 per cent of the global population remains excluded from the internet and there is a clear gap between high-income and middle or low-income countries. So, Bangladesh needs to work on minimizing the division between Have & Have not of the modern skills, knowledge and easy & smooth access to new- technologies.

Policymaking with regards to 4IR:

To reiterate a point we made in the last paragraphs, the changes brought by the 4IR are not inexorable forces of nature. They are actually tools “made by people for people” (Schwab 2016: 105), which people will use to make decisions, institute regulations and strengthen socio-economic development (Poole 2017). In order to reduce the negative effects of the transformation and create a more positive and equal future, governance systems need to react; they need to adapt and lead the transformation. Governments have to keep up with very fast technological and knowledge advances and handles the changes that occur simultaneously in multiple areas of economies and societies. This means subject to their structures and the levels of transparency as well as efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing disruption. However, legislators, civil servants and regulators struggle to make the shift from the IT and digital technologies of the Third Industrial Revolution to the multiple technological changes of the 4IR (Schwab 2016). The use of these new technologies in policy processes clashes with capability and institutional barriers. With the 4IR, politics and policymaking will have to change and adapt, as it will in other areas of social and economic life.

The challenge ahead for Bangladesh poses by 4IR:

There are some challenges along with some opportunities to apply Industry 4.0 in Bangladesh. The challenges include poor infrastructure, maintaining the availability of cheap labor, and expensive installation of technologies, inadequate government supports and lack of knowledge. The rapid pace and the magnitude at which change is occurring in labor markets due to the impact of 4IR on individuals and countries in diverse ways. It can be noted that the ongoing debate on the future world of work is skewed towards developed nations, and identified few key challenges specifically to a developing country like Bangladesh: (1) being trapped in a low-productivity agriculture sector, with limited avenues for structural transformation; and (2) the presence of a large informal sector, consisting of low-productivity and low-paying jobs, which are likely to become the norm rather than the exception with emerging new forms of employment. How well Bangladesh could harnesses these opportunities will largely depend on policy responses, given the reality that the industrial development is not well-balanced throughout the country, in fact some remote areas of the country are yet to realize full dividends of the first three industrial revolutions.

As per the elements of Industry 4.0 devised by Boston Consulting Group, it has been identified that the

physical efforts of the human being would be reduced while face-to-face meeting is also not going to be required for the decision making in management level for any action. Industry 4.0 is described in different ways in order to present a manufacturing revolution; for example, it is called the ‘Manufacturing Renaissance’ in the US, whereas it is ‘made in China 2025’ in China (MAPI Foundation, 2015; BDI, 2016). Some experts have opined that people in countries who are new to the industrial sector are confused and are facing structural challenges over the term Industry 4.0; therefore, it has taken time to apply and adopt the elements of Industry 4.0 and to gain the benefits of this movement. However, like other developing and emerging countries, Bangladesh, is trying hard to adapt to Industry 4.0. Hence, we need to invest enormously in the latest technologies so that human resources can be integrated for the development of the production level. This is not an entirely new challenge. It has also historically taken required time to adapt the technological transformations and societal changes the industrial revolutions have brought about. As cheaper labor is a competing factor for Bangladesh, which is considered another barrier for quicker automation in the manufacturing companies here and also another significant issue against the adoption of Industry 4.0. In addition, they were also similar in view in the case of the installation of technologies to gain the benefits of Industry 4.0, which is very expensive; therefore, the companies do not like to apply them in the factory sector so quickly, being another challenge for the application of Industry 4.0. Successful industries in Bangladesh, such as the RMG industry, leather industry, and service industry, can take the benefits of Industry 4.0 first - because automation reduces the unit costs, improves communication efficiency, minimizes the risks of accidents and contributes to creating a sustainable economy. Innovation and technology based development plays a vital role in each Sector. The progress in digital transformation and growing reciprocal connections poses new challenges for the organization since Industry 4.0 change products and production systems significantly concerning the design, processes, operations and services. Certainly, the implementation of this concept has further consequences for management and future jobs through creating new business models. These, in turn, has a large impact on the industry and markets while efficiently affecting the whole life cycle of the product, providing a new way of production and conducting a business, which allow for an improvement in processes and an increase in competitiveness of enterprises. In this digital era - maintaining data privacy & protecting secrecy of people’s digital lives is a challenge we need to overcome. We also need to build capacity of coping with the faster changes in terms of technological updates & Knowledge Management issues.

Way forward for Bangladesh:

It is understood that the ability of Bangladesh to deal with multifaceted challenges and tied-up emerging opportunities in the future world of business critically depends on the urgent formulation of a conclusive path and plan in preparation for the 4IR. The most demanding priorities includes further in-depth labor market diagnostics analyzing probable 4IR impacts, better devising of education and labor market policies with more focus on quality and protective mechanism for vulnerable employees, putting emphasis on employment maximization to avoid widening inequities and related threats, and fostering an open economy with more private-sector engagements. As 4IR can be collectively referred to as cyber-physical system, Bangladesh needs to formulate comprehensive policies in advance to face the challenges of the impending fourth industrial revolution (4IR). The existing industrial policies will fail to help out, so the government needs to address the policy issue immediately. Keeping the society 4.0 in mind, our education system has to be improved. The government is going to face huge challenge to educate the 50 million students of the country who are cued in the job pipelines come having technological breakthroughs. Though in the coming days, the numbers of jobs will be shrinking in some of the manufacturing sector, youths will find jobs in other sectors - if they could prepare themselves properly and build up their skill sets anticipating the high-skill demands of future. Yes, here comes the role of the government to facilitate & help out the relevant sectors. Technology is helping Bangladesh to move into the middle-income country bracket; likewise advanced technology will help her become a higher income country soon. So, I believe job market will never shrink - rather, the advanced technology will create more opportunities for high-skilled workers to earn value added returns. Bangladesh may go for Economic Zoning & Industrial Zoning concept to attract FDI from the rest of the world to be invested in modern technology based ventures.

Concluding remarks:

It's really tough to not get excited with all these changes happening. The country is feeling the waves of the 4IR and yet a lot of us are unaware of it or can't comprehend it rightly. At its core, the 4IR is not actually

a question of technology but largely of culture. These days sometimes we are over connected with every little thing on real-time through internet, smart phones, cable TVs etc; which leads people to be carelessly overloads with information. As it is an age of isolation, adoption of more from new Technologies & inclusiveness is much important for us. Technology is generally associated with responsibilities & rapid changes, and changes usually come up with greater responsibilities. So, we need to learn more of new technologies - and make thoughtful use of those experiences. We should try to add values to the information we collect in every steps of our day to day life, critically analyze and validate those to use effectively. We all should share the responsibility to change the world and ultimately it falls on the shoulder of the folks of the current generation - as we are belonging to. Right now on the verge of the 4IR -‘Human Potentials’ is the key thing for us to be focused on. Bangladesh should use Technology as an enabler to create desired changes through innovations. And we need to take extra caution about not to be over whelmed by technology & its usages, besides we need to go some extra miles in search of innovations. Society 5.0 is also on its way - just knocking our doors, so we need to prepare ourselves on this front with regards to enhancing capabilities of our Human resources to do better living in the knowledge based society. In fact, Bangladesh is far behind the Industry 4.0 in terms of her readiness. The challenges discussed above in this piece of writing should be overcome first to reap the benefits out of 4IR. Establishment of the manufacturing set-up with the elements of Industry 4.0 is crucial not only to increase the amount of production along with quality, but also to reduce the production costs to keep up competitive ourselves. For a country like Bangladesh Integrating and establishing Industry 4.0 is not only complicated, but also somewhat expensive, while other critical challenges are still existing with us . Therefore, it is important for the policy makers of the country being the top level of the government to be fully-adaptive to the Industry 4.0 - so that the country can utilize the maximum benefits of 4IR. If the companies of the newly industrializing counties like Bangladesh do not want to miss this trend, they should invest in modern technologies and research based management models in order to reach to the new customers and to ensure a new height of success in this changing business scenario. The corporate sector of the country also need to be proactive in terms of the governance approach to handle the changes bring is going to be occurred in by through the technological movements.

References:

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POLISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES; 2018 Vol.17 No.1

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Prepared is South Asia for the Fourth Industrial

Revolution?”; Published in Talking Economies by

Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) of Sri Lanka on

Thursday 3 October 2019.

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Systems Matter”; Arnaldo Pellini,Vanesa Weyrauch.

Maria Malho, Fred Carden

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