FOCUS ON – HYBRID ELECTRONICS
WHY SLOW ADOPTION OF INDUSTRY 4.0 IS PUTTING MANUFACTURERS AT RISK Despite the term Industry 4.0 having been in circulation for nearly a decade now, many manufacturers are yet to tap into the much-vaunted benefits. In 2018, just 20.7% of manufacturers rated themselves as “highly prepared to address the emerging business models the Fourth Industrial Revolution brings”. Even now, many manufacturers still remain slow to adopt the emerging technologies - from additive manufacturing to AI and machine learning – that are associated with Industry 4.0.
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new McKinsey survey, ‘COVID-19: An inflection point for Industry 4.0’, which polled leaders at global manufacturing companies worldwide, found that just 26% were prepared to say they had scaled some or many Industry 4.0 use cases. One of the reasons for this is that many manufacturers are being driven by a desire to keep up with industry trends or the latest competitor actions. CIOs and CFOs at these manufacturers are focused above all on getting a return on their investment or at 12 Industry Europe
the longest medium term and that tends to mitigate against making longer term investments in the latest advanced technologies.
The risk of not investing For these manufacturers, there is a significant downside to keeping their powder dry over new investment over the longer term though. Manufacturers will find that they increasingly lose out on contracts where they are outbid by smaller, more agile specialists who are focused on bringing in
technologies like Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) or robotic process automation (RPA) to enhance their specialism. Customers will increasingly look to these companies to meet their more specific needs and get better value for their money. The semiconductor industry is a good example. The number of players has shrunk significantly to the point where there are arguably just three in play that manufacture advanced semiconductors on a global scale down from around 20 in total. As of 2021,
