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Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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Industrie4.0–HitorHype?
Rainer Drath, Alexander Horch, ABB AG, 68526 Ladenburg, Germany
Introduction
In Germany, the term „Industrie 4.0“ [1] is currently prevailing on almost every industry-related
fair, conference or call for public funded projects. First time used at the Hanover Fair in 2011, it
raised numerous controversial discussions and the major question is: hit or a hype? Even in
politics, this term is used frequently with respect to the German industry and research efforts
relating to it are currently supported by the government funding bodies BMBF1 and BMWi2 with
200 M€. The term Industrie 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution and is often understood
as the application of the generic concept of Cyber Physical Systems (CPS) [5], [6], [7] to industrial
production systems (Cyber Physical Production Systems, CPPS). In North America, similar ideas
have been brought up under the name Industrial Internet [3 ], [4] by Ge ne ral Electr ic. T he techn ic al
basis is very similar to Industrie 4.0 but the application is broader than industrial production and
also includes e.g. smart electrical grids. A variety of different definitions raised confusion rather
than increasing transparency. Over-ambitious marketing reinforced the confusion (“Industrie 4.0
we already do”). Finally this obscures the real and sound future visions behind Industrie 4.0. This
contribution intends to provide an easy-to-understand access to the core ideas of Industrie 4.0,
and describes basic industrial requirements that need to be fulfilled for its success.
AboutIndustrie1.0–3.0
The first three industrial revolutions spanned almost 200 years. First, mechanical looms driven by
steam engines in the 1780s started a significant change. Fabrics production left private homes in
favor of central factories followed by an extreme increase in productivity. The second industrial
revolution started about 100 years later in the slaughterhouses in Cincinnati and found its climax
with the production of the Ford T in the US. The basis for another productivity explosion were
continuous production lines based on both division of labor and the introduction of conveyor
belts. Thirdly, in 1969, Modicon presented the first programmable logic controller (PLC) that
enabled digital programming of automation systems. The programming paradigm still governs
1 Federal Ministry of Education and Research, Germany
2 Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy, Germany
Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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today’s modern automation system engineering and lead to highly flexible and efficient
automation systems.
Figure 1: Overview of the four industrial revolutions. Note that production flexibility was highest when manual labor dominated
production. Flexibility is one of the main drivers behind Industrie 4.0.
It is remarkable that Industrie 4.0 announces an industrial revolution a priori. In that sense, the
somewhat provocative question “hit or hype” illustrates the current discussion, but cannot be
answered yet, it is future. However, we believe that the ideas behind Industrie 4.0 have the
potential to be as formative as the three technical breakthroughs mentioned above.
Industrie4.0–backgroundandtechnicaldrivers
The major technical background of Industrie 4.0 is the introduction of internet technologies into
industry. This technical basis is often mixed up with corresponding future visions. In spite of some
marketing messages, Industrie 4.0 is still future. Most technical ingredients are already available,
howbeit mainly used in other applications, e.g. the consumer industry.
Industrie 4.0 is closely related to the term Cyber Physical System (CPS). To understand the CPS
concept, the following hypotheses will help:
Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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·Hypothesis 1: Communication infrastructure in production systems will become more and
more affordable and hence be introduced everywhere. It is useful for a variety of purposes:
for engineering, configuration, service, diagnostics, operation and service of products, field
devices, machines or plants. It will hence become a self-evident part in future production
systems. This trend is unstoppable and not forced by anybody – it currently happens in the
same ways as mobile phones have found their way into our pockets.
·Hypothesis 2: Field devices, machines, plants and factories (even individual products) will
increasingly be connected to a network (e.g. the internet or a private factory net). They will be
available as data objects in the network, and may store real-time data. By that, they become
searchable, explorable and analyzable in the network. This will lead to an explosion of available
objects and data, accessible from anywhere.
·Hypothesis 3: Field devices, machines, plants and factories (even individual products) will
become able to store documents and knowledge about themselves outside their physical body
in the network. By that, they obtain a living virtual representation in the net, with individual
identifiers. They will store documents, 3D models, simulation models, requirements etc. This
information, stored outside of the body of the physical objects, is updatable and hence
represents the latest available version. In addition to that data, different functionalities will act
for the physical objects: negotiation functions, exploration functions etc. These data objects
augment the corresponding “real” device and form a second identity in the network, where
these data objects form a knowledge base for a variety of applications.
These three hypotheses sound reasonable as such, but in order to make their connection more
transparent, let us consider a simple example: traffic lights today act either independent from
each other or are controlled by a central traffic control system. As a Cyber Physical System, the
physical traffic lights would have an object representation in the network providing their current
color and time schedule. Based on this data, future cars could inform themselve about the plan
of the next traffic light, could adjust speed, or provide auto-motor-on-off features to minimize
emissions. Future navigation systems could calculate an optimal routing through the traffic for
every car dependent on its position, target and other related information such as traffic jams.
Once cars feedback their position, speed and target back into the network, the traffic lights could
orchestrate and optimize their behavior with respect to an optimal traffic. Polices, ambulances or
fire engines could “book” green lights for optimal security and safety in the city.
Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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The novelty in such a scenario is not in a new technology, but it combines available technology in
a new way. The availability of bulk data allows development of services, which were not possible
so far, like navigation systems with user-driven traffic information. Availability of bulk data allows
a variety of new business models. In combination with third party services as weather, calendar,
payment services, geolocation or historical data, new levels of organization and scheduling are
possible. The possibilities are endless.
To sum it up: a Cyber Physical System requires three levels (see Figure 2). First the physical objects
(in this example the traffic lights and cars). Second it requires data models of the mentioned
physical objects in a network infrastructure. Third, it requires services based on the available data.
Figure 2 : Three levels form a Cyber Physical System in Industrie 4.0
What would be possible in industry based on this concept? Components, products and other
entities in industrial production would get an own identity in the network. They could negotiate
with each other, or could be interconnected and simulated. Systems could be virtually integrated,
tested and optimized. The digital factory and the virtual commissioning would be accessible to
Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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everybody (authorized). Algorithms for autonomy optimization could revolutionize production
planning. Products may navigate autonomously through the production line. The revolution is not
necessarily the technical realization, but the new horizon of business models, services and
individualized products.
IndustrialRequirements
The German Industrie 4.0 initiative is supported by an industry-led steering group, which coordi-
nates a variety of committee teams [9]. Many companies, organisations and universities work on
different aspects of Industrie 4.0. Some very basic requirements steer most of the work currently
being done:
·Investment protection: I40 has to be stepwise introducible into existing plants.
·Stability: I40 must not compromise production, neither by disturbances nor by a
breakdown. Production systems have fierce demands with respect to real time behaviour,
reliability, availability, robustness etc.
·Data Privacy: access to production related data and services has to be controllable in order
to protect company know-how.
·Cyber Security: I40 has to prevent unauthorized access to production systems in order to
prevent environmental or economic damage and harm to humans.
A future Industrie 4.0 architecture has to fulfill these requirements as preconditions for
industrial acceptance.
Next important steps towards realising an Industrie 4.0 reference architecture have already
been outlined in Section 5 of [2]. At this level, companies, organisations and standardization
bodies [8] need to collaborate with a maximum transparency in order to succeed with this
complex and pre-competitive task.
It is difficult to imagine all possible consequences of an industrial production that largely
follows the concepts shown above. Looking back at the previous industrial revolutions, it was
merely the effect on the way of working rather than the technical novelty that has motivated
the term “revolution”. What could be revolutionary for people, economy and society w.r.t.
Industrie 4.0? Flexibility in production needs to be translated into flexibility of workers. It needs
to take advantage of the demographic challenge in many countries. And it has to enable
industrial production to cope with decarbonization of energy supply, political instabilities in
some countries, natural disasters, shortage of natural reserves etc. For Industrie 4.0, the term
Drath R., Horch A.: Industrie 4.0 – hit or hype? In IEEE Industrial Electronics Magazine 01/2014; 8(2):56-58, 2014.
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“revolution” does not refer to the technical realisation but to the ability to meet today’s as
well as future challenges.
Summary
Industrie 4.0 is still future. However, Industrie 4.0 is a phenomenon, which will come inevitably,
whether we want or not. This is similar to the consumer world, which has been confronted with
the internet in the early 90s, and has led to an unpredictable world of online shops, auctions,
internet banking, online-brokerage, video streaming. Industrie 4.0 is the triad of physical objects,
their virtual representation and services and applications on top of those. We are convinced that
Industrie 4.0 is a potential “hit”, given that all contributing parties collaborate well in order to
overcome the challenges outlined above. The reader is invited to contribute.
References
[1] Kagermann, Henning, W. D. Lukas, and W. Wahlster. "Industrie 4.0: Mit dem Internet der Dinge auf dem Weg
zur 4. industriellen Revolution." VDI Nachrichten (2011).
[2] Kagermann, Henning, Wolfgang Wahlster, and J. Helbi. "Recommendations for implementing the strategic
initiative INDUSTRIE 4.0" (2013). Online at www.plattform-i40.de/finalreport2013
[3] Leber, Jessica (2012-11-28). "General Electric’s San Ramon Software Center Takes Shape | MIT Technology
Review". Technologyreview.com.
[4] Peter C. Evans and Marco Annunziata: Industrial Internet: Pushing the Boundaries of Minds and Machines”
http://files.gereports.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ge-industrial-internet-vision-paper.pdf
[5] Ragunathan (Raj) Rajkumar, Insup Lee, Lui Sha, and John Stankovic. 2010. Cyber-physical systems: the next
computing revolution. In Proceedings of the 47th Design Automation Conference (DAC '10). ACM, New York,
NY, USA, 731-736. DOI=10.1145/1837274.1837461 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1837274.1837461.
[6] Lui Sha, Sathish Gopalakrishnan, Xue Liu, Qixin Wang, Cyber-Physical Systems: A New Frontier, in: Machine
Learning in Cyber Trust, 2009, pp 3-13.
[7] Radhakisan Baheti and Helen Gill, Cyber-physical Systems (2011), p. 161 – 166. In: "The Impact of Control
Technology, T. Samad and A.M. Annaswamy (eds.), IEEE Control Systems Society, 2011, available at
www.ieeecss.org."
[8] DKE, VDE (2013), DIE DEUTSCHE NORMUNGS-ROADMAP INDUSTRIE 4.0, http://www.dke.de/Roadmap-
Industrie40
[9] www.plattform-i40.de
