Industry 4.0 not moving ICT first

What is industry? According to the dictionary interpretation, refers to the extraction of natural material resources, as well as industrial raw materials and agricultural raw materials processing of the social production sector. According to the overall division of labour, industry can be divided into extractive industries and processing industries, but also divided into heavy industry and light industry. In some countries, industry is also known as manufacturing, and usually refers only to the processing industries.

For each of our individual consumers, the most direct manifestation of industry is light industry, or industrial processing. That is, the human process and transformation of the nature of the material industry, the extractive industries are not normally accessible to us, and it's like we're dealing with apps on the phone all day, but no one cares about the data centers that these apps are connected to, and the extractive industries are the data centers that collect the different substances in nature, such as minerals, oil, plants, and so on, and the processing industry is responsible for these raw materials to make the final consumer goods-such as automobiles, food, clothing, furniture and so on.

It is impossible to imagine what our society and everyday life would be like without industry. Therefore, in the history of human civilization, the status of industry is very important, it can be said that only into the industrial era, human civilization has really changed the quality, and therefore it will also be in the future of human development process, play a more important role.

4 Stages of industrial development

Good at summarizing the human, has been the development of the industrial History of the phased division, that has been the 4th stage (or 4 industrial change), but the previous 3 stages how to divide the basis, but I personally prefer to agree with the following method.

At present the most recognized, 4 stages of industrial development definition and time division

In 1784, the advent of the first mechanical loom opened the preface to the first industrial Revolution, which was the first time human beings had been freed from the human limit to start mechanized manufacturing, while the driving force was water or steam. By the year 1866, when Siemens launched its first industrial dynamo, 4 years later, in a slaughterhouse in Cincinnati, the United States, the introduction of the first electric production belt brought the industrial era to a second stage. In this phase, the electrification of large-scale production line has become an important symbol, this aspect of the classic masterpiece is the Ford in 1908 launched the "T-type" sedan.

Ford's T-car production line, is the representative of the industry 2.0 times

With the continuous progress of human technology, information technology (IT) appeared, and when it combined with industry, it brought the third industrial revolution. At this stage, the human-made programmable chip was implanted into an industrial environment of electrification, the hallmark of which was the introduction of the first human programmable logic controller (plc,programmable Logic, Modicon, later acquired by Schneider, France). Controller), has given the production line "programmable" the ability, thus enters the automation production and the management time.

Now, after entering the 21st century, mankind is ushering in the 4th Industrial Revolution, which is now often said of industry 4.0.

In the past three industrial revolutions, we can see that the development of industry is inseparable from the overall technological level of human society at that time. When humans discovered that water vapor can be used to drive objects, there was the first industrial revolution, when the human can freely generate electricity, the emergence of the second Industrial Revolution, the third time it is from the human master IT technology. In other words, water drives the first industrial revolution, electricity drives the second industrial revolution, it drives the third industrial revolution, then where does the driving force of the fourth industrial Revolution originate? This also has to say from the form of Industry 4.0.

If the first three revolutions were primarily the self-improvement and evolution of industrial production, then industry 4.0 was the product of a closer integration of industry with its surroundings, based on the internet (Internet) and the IoT of Things (iot,internet of Things), This is the original driving force of Industry 4.0, and the specific execution is the so-called information physical system (cps,cyber-physical Bae).

Although it is an information physics system, please note that the English full name of CPS uses the word cyber, rather than what information, in the Chinese language for the cyber Word does not have a very precise and simple control. In fact, cyber not only represents information, it is an expression of full digital space, it is a more complicated information world than information. And the reality of the integration of the physical system of the product CPS, although not for the industry 4.0, but to maximize the embodiment of the essence of Industrial 4.0-will be composed of the virtual world of information and the physical world to maximize the production capacity of the combination, and mutual influence.

If you want to describe it in a simple word, make the whole manufacturing process intelligent, that is, intelligent manufacturing.

A typical CPS architecture, commonly known as 5C architecture, can also be understood as a 5-tier architecture--connection connection layer, conversion conversion layer, cyber Network layer, cognition cognitive layer, revisit configuration layer

A typical CPS architecture, commonly known as 5C architecture, is divided into 5 layers from bottom to top. The connection layer is responsible for self-service interconnection, communication and perception of the outside world (through the corresponding sensors), the transfer layer is responsible for the data collected by the connection layer Multidimensional analysis and conversion, extraction of appropriate information, such as system health and external environmental changes, At the network level, a larger range of similar information is gathered with more comprehensive components and system-level State collection, in the cognitive layer, the data of the network layer is "cognitive" and integrated to simulate, and give its own judgment (auxiliary human control), finally in the configuration layer to implement self-help adjustment to meet the external parameters, The change of demand and environment has formed a closed loop of response logic.

To be blunt, CPS is a set of self (group) communication, Self (group) perception, Self (group) cognition, and the System of Self (group) adjustment for automatic response according to the change of the outside world, it can be grafted into any industrial scene to make the scene have "intelligence", such as intelligent power grid, intelligent traffic, Intelligent medical treatment, and the combination of industrial manufacturing is "intelligent manufacturing."

Clearly, CPS does not represent a specific device (although some devices can be understood as CPS nodes, such as mobile detectors), but the overall industrial system included, we can the Industrial 4.0-era manufacturing system collectively known as CPS advanced Manufacturing system. The different levels will span a number of devices, specifically how much to view the interconnection scale, or perhaps only a device, may be thousands, geographical range may be all over the world or even space, and responsible for the bottom of the connection is the Internet and IoT, concrete implementation and embedded system development inseparable.

Therefore, we must stress again, if there is no internet and Iot,cps can not talk about, and because of the Internet and IoT mature, so that the implementation of CPS is possible, but also make industrial 4.0 possible. We can understand this: based on the full interconnection of information (digital) environment, from the beginning of the product purchase intention, to the follow-up order submission, product design, supply chain procurement, manufacturing, logistics delivery, follow-up services and product quality tracking, until the product life is terminated, the whole life cycle process intelligent manufacturing services, is the industry 4.0.

Although many people would like to highlight the industry 4.0 customization ability, but in my opinion this is not the first demand of industry 4.0, but a kind of natural ability to reflect, the essence of this ability is from the order to the final delivery of the entire process of "intelligent manufacturing", only intelligent to achieve a smaller particle size, higher precision customization services.

The reason why Internet and IoT are so important to industrial 4.0 is that the establishment of "cyber space". Today, we should have a profound understanding of the role of the Internet, which can be done more and more, the original need in the physical real world to complete things, such as bank remittances, ordering meals, buy daily necessities, taxis and so on, and the reason to do these, That's because the Internet has digitized these actions or processes, and in "cyber space" quickly matched docking, this is the most critical place.

People who have studied analog and digital circuits know that the processing of analog signals is much more difficult than digital signal processing, and in reality, in the physical world to change things, than in the virtual world (cyber space) to complicate more than dozens of times? Therefore, the digital reality of things, and in the virtual world based on the Internet to change, and then back to the real world, is a typical "internet thinking."

For example, the taxi software, is the demand for taxis and empty resources, in the Internet level of digital integration, and then use (call the car end and the driver side) for the node for a one-to-one connection, so that the physical world of people and taxis can quickly find each other. Restaurant booking software, is the dining needs and restaurant seating information for digital integration, through the online booking, to consume the specified offline resources. Borrow a popular word to depict, this is O2O (online to Offline, line to the line, but its premise is Offline to online, that is, the resources under the line first digitized, presented on the line).

Similarly, an obvious feature of Industry 4.0 is the need to produce (Buy) users with the backend design, manufacturing resources digitized, first in the virtual world of the Internet to match, and then control the physical world of equipment, raw materials and logistics for customized production and product delivery, This is clearly the typical practice of Internet thinking and O2O.

The core of Industrial 4.0-intelligent manufacturing plant, referred to as Factory 4.0, pay attention to the periphery of the key points-cloud computing, large data, IOT, security and new generation of logistics, they are the industrial 4.0 to achieve the real External Foundation, and CPS, 3D printing, robots can be considered as the basis of internal implementation is the inevitable result of industrial evolution.

Now let's look at how an industrial 4.0-era factory works. First of all, customers (consumers) submit their own orders, where we play down the so-called customized orders, because the industry 4.0 of the intelligence has been able to ensure large-scale customization of services, which is basically a default ability.

Customer orders need to be aggregated through the Internet (can be issued from mobile phones, PCs), through the collation of data into the corresponding production enterprises (may be designated by the customer, Also may be the Industrial 4.0 intermediary automatic allocation), the production enterprise according to the order, automatically triggers the corresponding supply chain and the logistics system, buys the necessary material (before already assumes the main body design is ready-made). Next, through the 3D printing technology to complete the product prototype, after customer confirmation, into the formal production line, to be completed, quality inspection, and then through the automatic layout of the logistics system will deliver the product to the user. Among them, the advanced manufacturing system based on CPS is the core platform of the manufacturing enterprise.

Here, we borrow a taxi software example, taxi software is to spare taxis or special car resources on the Internet to provide to the taxi users. Later, there will be this type of Industry 4.0 product software, not let you choose ready-made products, but has been digitized, the national and even the global scope of the current available product design, product modeling, product manufacturing and supporting logistics resources, From this will also appear the so-called Industrial 4.0 intermediary platform, like today's Taobao, for the foreground of the product requirements of the summary and backstage design, production order distribution.

Theoretically, if the digitization is sufficient, a single CPS production node (such as a production line) of an enterprise can contribute to the Internet and accept direct "calls" from customers, which is the digitization of productivity described above. Of course, to achieve this scenario, there are other tasks that need to be done, such as the standardization of the digital standard of production systems, the standard of Interface (API), the automatic docking of supporting systems, the overall security protection, and so on. Will likely be in the implementation of the vendors, technology, standards between the barriers, and let the ultimate Industrial 4.0 vision can not be achieved.

Looking at the entire system of industrial 4.0, we have clearly seen as the core of the driving force, the Internet and the value of IoT, this value is brought about by their "cyber space", and who is to support it? The answer is ict--information and communication technology (information and communication Marvell).

The development of Internet and IoT is obviously inseparable with the communication technology, especially the development of wireless communication technology (such as 3G, 4G, WiFi, etc.), which plays a decisive role for the wide penetration of the Internet, and thus gives birth to IoT.

In order to make the information transmitted by the Internet and IoT, it is necessary to construct an orderly and cyber space, which can not be separated from the powerful processing ability.

Information represents data, or data is the carrier of information, so the larger the Internet, the more information, it means that the volume of data will grow rapidly. In the Industrial 4.0 era, the emphasis is on the more complete digitization-demand digitization, process digitization, resources digitization, even production capacity will be digitized. And when the customer's mobile phone can directly control a specific production line, you can imagine this internet-based, IoT "People and things, things and things, people and people," the size of the interconnection, so the size of the data produced will be how big? This is the so-called large data, but to its timely processing and analysis, highly dynamic and efficient it platform is essential, this is the cloud computing.

When we introduce the implementation logic of Industry 4.0, we have already pointed out the importance of cloud computing and large data, the latter, in contrast, is more important because the entire industrial 4.0 system is run by various types, from all aspects of data, which may come from external sensors, possibly from self-monitoring devices, may come from human intervention, may come from the needs of the Internet, may Notifications from other systems may come from simulations, etc. ... They are imported into the whole CPS system in an orderly manner, allowing them to feel, perceive, and perform real-time dynamic adjustments to automatically respond to changes in external requirements and environments, ensuring optimal productivity and the most intelligent service experience.

So some people say that industry 4.0 is the data industry, makes sense, and the resulting demand for it platforms is clear-it must have a flexible, efficient, large-scale data processing capability and a good combination of CPS systems to ensure that the final results are available. So, the data is the "soul" of Industry 4.0, while the strong and flexible IT platform is the "body" behind industry 4.0, which is the value of big data and cloud computing for industrial 4.0.

Many of the above, in fact, mostly just technical theory level of the description, really implemented to a specific enterprise, obviously not so simple.

In elaborating the characteristics of the industry 4.0, we have emphasized that it and the first three times the Industrial revolution is a major difference is that, when the enterprise with more advanced CPS system to transform production systems, enterprises also more with the external interaction. We can thus be summed up in two parts: the transformation of internal production systems and the transformation of the external interaction system. Since industrial equipment varies from one industry to another, internal production system changes are not covered in this article, and the change of the external interaction system is a common evolution and deserves the attention of all industrial enterprises.

The so-called external interaction system refers to how to establish a new synergy and interaction relationship with customers, partners and suppliers, which includes various outsourcing resources, when the Internet and IoT are more thoroughly digitized. Think of the "internet mentality" we have previously emphasized--full use of digital and fully interconnected networks to help us overcome difficulties in the physical world with virtual cyber space and bring new business and model innovations.

For example, a customer needs, in the enterprise internal interactive system, can directly through all the relevant platform, such as logistics, supply chain, partners, etc., to achieve automated order decomposition and resource scheduling. For example, I will own the design, the production capacity of the maximum digital (such as rich APIs and collaborative interface), and presented on the network, so that customers directly or indirectly (through the intermediary platform) to me, or even direct call. For example, can I maximize the digitization of my products, especially the working status and Health index, through IoT so that I can monitor the overall situation in the background, and to provide customers with more accurate customized sales services to ensure that the product throughout the life cycle value maximization? (such as the concept of "industrial Internet", as GE dominates), there is no doubt that this concept and the specific process have changed greatly from the tradition.

The possible key link in the Industrial 4.0 transformation of a manufacturing enterprise may be much more involved in the actual operation, and this is just an example for reference

Therefore, the industry 4.0 for an enterprise, certainly not only a technical level of things, than a set of ERP system is much more complex. It needs the enterprise's management system to consider its own development, in the relevant key links and processes, to the digital, Internet thinking to look at the improvement, and then according to their own needs of urgency, and orderly in all aspects of the transformation.

In a word, digitalization and interconnection is an important guarantee for the establishment of Enterprise's external interactive system, and it should be the core concept. It will maximize the resources of the enterprise to provide services to the customer, and through the Internet/iot built cyber space to fully interact with the outside so that their production capacity and value of the maximum protection (you may become a supplier of another enterprise, or find a new partner). On the other hand, combined with the production needs of their own products, the transformation of specific production and ancillary manufacturing equipment, such as 3D printing, production robot, etc., they will be integrated into a whole CPS system, and external interaction system through, thus forming their own industrial 4.0 structure. At the same time, to the new business model, set up a matching process, management system and system.

Of course, all of this is inseparable from the early intervention of ICT, whether external or internal, whether digital or interconnected, whether it is process management and service support, Industry 4.0 is inseparable from a strong ICT support, it will be to a large extent, determine the industry 4.0 of the ultimate success or failure of the road. Therefore, "Industry 4.0 not move ICT first" for all industrial enterprises, is the same truth!

(Responsible editor: Mengyishan)