Industry 4.0 is the latest buzzword, and quite rightly so. Although a short phrase, it covers an enormous scope – automation, enterprise resource planning, and integration of manufacturing execution systems. However, this industrial revolution demands an increasing degree of trust and privacy protection. This is where blockchain enters the scene, to meet the needs specific to industry 4.0.
What is industry 4.0?
The term is being used in close association with words like ‘smart’ factories and the fourth industrial revolution. But what is industry 4.0? It’s the coming together of computers and automation in a never-seen-before fashion, digitizing the manufacturing segment. Physical processes in the factory are monitored using cyber-physical systems. In fact, physical landscape of a factory that qualifies under industry 4.0 becomes the Internet of Things. Such factories, without fail, exhibit the following features – interoperability, transparency, technical assistance, and decentralization.
How does blockchain support industry 4.0?
The advent of industry 4.0 has highlighted the need for a whole of lot things, and the search for most ends at blockchain. For instance, one of the goals for industry 4.0 is to achieve autonomous machines. Now, if you add blockchain between your ERP and parts supplier and the cyber-physical system composing your factory, machines can safely and autonomously place an order for their replacement parts to arrive. Furthermore, the potential of blockchain to allow frictionless and transparent financial transactions, among any number of smart devices, makes it indispensable for the economic shifts that industry 4.0 entails. Here’s a peek into how blockchain supports industry 4.0
Blockchain propels industry 4.0 model to expand its outreach further. Supply chain management, prognostic health management of industrial machines, and remote machine diagnostics are some of the fields where we will soon be witnessing blockchain’s support to industry 4.0. Manufacturers and technology professionals must come together and brainstorm on how blockchain can revitalize the factories in an increasingly commoditized and global world.
