In recent years, many technology innovations have been developed enabling the implementation of smart and connected manufacturing systems. In the coming years, manufacturers will face new challenges in Industry 4.0 to achieve the original vision of an intelligent and self-optimizing factory.
We are currently at a crossroads between the first level of Industry 4.0, characterised by technology driven innovation, and a future level of Industry 4.0+, which will be based on data-driven innovation.
This article by Dr. Erwin Rauch introduces these different phases of Industry 4.0 and discusses two research directions that are expected to generate pioneering advances in the production environment: the introduction of Artificial Intelligence into manufacturing, and the use of nature as inspiration in the form of Biological Transformation.
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