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January 27, 2020

Smartmill

by Baris Cem Ozpolat, Ozpolat Makine, Turkey

There is a simple, but a very frequently used term in business nowadays: Industry 4.0.

Industry 4.0 is very valid and very necessary term but, in fact, it is a brand.

Let’s explain: There is a specific era we think of when people say “Industrial Revolution” or “The first Industrial Revolution”. In this period, people began utilising steam energy in production processes during the 18th century, which caused production speed to increase and production costs to decrease.
 


These results have raised awareness of the benefits of using machinery and not only hands and tools in the production process. This is called the Industrial Revolution. According to many, the second Industrial Revolution was the “mass production system” Henry Ford invented in the early 1900s.

Mass production means producing hundreds of the same products at once. In this system, the main purpose was to decrease the production time per unit. However, when applied successfully, mass production also led to decreasing the production costs and decreasing product defaults. When producers realised these results, all producers converted their production systems to ones featuring mass production, no matter whether they produced cars, pencils, furniture or chocolate. And that is how Mr Ford ended up being called the ‘father’ of the second Industrial Revolution.

Until the 1980s, only machines, the labour power and our brains were used in all production types, including mass production. All calculations and crosschecks were being done by experts by hand. In the 1980s, society then started benefiting from the first examples of digital technology; computers started to be used in production processes.

Although computers were only being used to make people’s jobs easier in calculating and recording production, the ones who use computers started to use their time more efficiently and produce with fewer default ratios compared to the users who did not use computers in production. So, day by day, more computers started being used in production. People who invented “Industry 4.0” called those years the third Industrial Revolution.

Industry 4.0 is the name of the fourth Industrial Revolution of which globally known engineering and technology company Siemens are accredited to having started. Therefore, Industry 4.0 is a brand of Siemens. The main purpose of this revolution is to use computers and components in production, but not as a helper.

In the 20th century, as people were growing more conscious about human rights, producers realised something: All their production processes were depending fully on their human workers. They found out that to develop their production, they needed to develop their workers.

They used various methods to achieve this goal, such as training their personnel, giving them the feeling of belonging or paying them high salaries to increase worker fulfilment. Some of these methods did work, actually. But after a while, no-one was able to develop with the same speed they used to have. Because no matter how trained or how dedicated their workers were, humans were just humans. Humans made mistakes.

Plus, the time of a human was getting more and more expensive. Since products grow more and more complicated and specialist in terms of manufacturing and understanding, finding the right expert was getting more difficult.


Read more HERE.
 

The Global Miller
This blog is maintained by The Global Miller staff and is supported by the magazine Milling and Grain
which is published by Perendale Publishers Limited.


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