by Virna Bottarelli |
The latest edition of theObservatory of the School of Management of the Politecnico di Milano (the new edition will be presented on 18 June, ed.) photographs an Italian Industry 4.0 market that in 2018 reached a value of €3.2 billion, 35% more than the previous year. For 80% of the 192 companies surveyed (153 large companies and 39 SMEs), Industry 4.0 is a revolution that will bring radical changes, while for the remaining 20% it is not a phenomenon of breaking with the past, but the evolution of what has already been started in previous years.
Certainly, the innovative scope of the set of enabling technologies and processes that goes by the name of Industry 4.0 is widely recognised and pervasive: it affects product development(Smart Lifecycle), enters production processes(Smart Factory) and transforms flow management(Smart Supply Chain).
The main benefits indicated by companies with projects active for more than a year are improved production flexibility (47%), increased plant efficiency (38%), reduced design time (34%) and the opportunity to develop innovative products (33%). But there are still barriers to be overcome in seizing the opportunities offered by the new production paradigm: difficulties in using technology and adopting standards (59%), organisational and skills management issues (41%), change management difficulties (20%) and dissatisfaction with the offer (17%). Above all, there is a need to develop a different organisational mindset to drive change.
Elisa Convertini, researcher at the Milan Polytechnic's Industry 4.0 Observatory, explains: "Six years have passed since the first Observatory and we can say that Industry 4.0 for companies has definitely become something real and concrete compared to the first years. The challenge of awareness has been overcome: now the bar has been raised towards a proper understanding of the potential and the multi-year path that needs to be started and managed in order to realise it. As of April 2018, only 6 respondents (2.5%) of the sample had stated that they were unfamiliar with the term Industry 4.0: consider that in 2016 alone (the year we carried out the first survey), almost 40% of the sample stated that they had never heard of Industry 4.0. The first year of the Observatory was that of the first surveys, definitions, and analyses of the first cases that would allow us to better understand the topic. The title was 'The competitiveness of manufacturing goes through digital', a sign that it was already clear that this digital revolution would mark a turning point for the sector, but that it would take some time for companies to fully understand it. Now is the time to take full advantage of the opportunities that digital technologies offer.
