Electricity + Control April 2018

TRANSFORMERS + SUBSTATIONS

Industry 4.0 – Growth, Challenges and Opportunity for Manufacturers Dereshin Pillay, T-Systems South Africa

Over the next couple of decades, rapid advances in technology have the potential to reinvent the industrial, IT and manufacturing sectors, under the banner of Industry 4.0.

Take Note!

While manufacturing is considered a domain of ‘cheap labour’, workers in these industries are skilled and experienced in their field. This opens up the op- portunity for them to become specialists. These individuals step outside of their organi- sation and offer services and expertise in a con- sultancy capacity.

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T he Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cy- ber-Physical Systems (CPS), and Smart Fac- tory technologies (robotics) are all poised to deliver greater productivity, choice and quality in shorter timeframes, while decreasing the depend- ency on cheap labour providers. Smart automated processes that leave little chance for defect may be the shift that industry and manufacturing need to rid itself of the stig- ma attached to enlisting low wage labour forces. Amidst challenges that could impede adoption - not least of which is the question of the impact on jobs in an economy where the labour intensive manufacturing sector has offered a counterweight to unemployment and poverty. Industry 4.0 could spell new opportunities for growth and devel- opment in a sector that has remained fairly un- changed for many years.

Technology breeds opportunity There has been little change to the way things have been manufactured over the past while. Al- though technology has seeped into the industry, most plants still rely heavily on labour to produce and assemble components - usually done sepa- rately. New technologies reimagine this process, from conception and design, to production and quality control. We look at the opportunities this creates for the South African market. Industry 4.0 broadly covers Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and smart manufacturing - coextensive technology developments with the collective aim of creating universal connectedness and computation within the confines of a production environment.Together, these developments spur the ability to manage and use data in real time to boost decision making, de- sign, production and delivery.

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34 Electricity + Control

APRIL 2018