Not only Industry 4.0
New technologies are not enough for the future of manufacturing
Industry 4.0 is easy enough to say.. But we also need to make it happen and, above all, to fill it with substance and with people. Without forgetting both the short and long term context where Industry 4.0 is being applied. In other words, this new industrial model should certainly be taken into consideration and implemented, but you shouldn’t stop there.
It is from this position that Sesto Viticoli has decided to write “Verso un manifatturiero italiano 4.0. Ricerca tecnologia e non solo” (Towards an Italian manufacturing 4.0. Technological research and much more besides). The meaning of the book is found in the sub-heading: “Technological research and much more besides”. Reasoning leads us to recognise that the manufacturing industry certainly has a central role to play in both advanced and developing economies and that its future can only be imagined in the form of the Industry 4.0 model.The problem, according to Viticoli, starts here.
The debate currently underway – as explained in the first pages of the book – is dominated by the importance of introducing digital technologies (IoT, big data, artificial intelligence, the cloud, advanced automation and so on) within company processes and organisations, as though a particularly technological asset alone would resolve all the problems and challenges, as well as deficiencies, which have accumulated in the Italian industrial system since before the beginning of the crisis.
For Viticoli, more is needed. And before anything else, we need to take a wider view of the situation in terms of possible developments. The book therefore begins with an analysis of “what’s happening in the world”, before moving on to ways in which to “build a future” and the available technological tools. The jump in quality soon follows. Viticoli examines the need for manufacturing companies to adapt to Industry 4.0, for training and the creation of business networks and for the capacity for technological transfers and the transformation of relations between the public and private spheres.
To support this, the author has collected a series of accounts from the FCA, Ericsson, Farmindustria, Fincantieri, LFoundry, Pirelli, Thales Alenia Space, Telecom, Cnr, Enea and Scuola Normale Pisa.
Viticoli’s book is important because it tells us about what’s happening now and above all because it looks at Industry 4.0 not as a magic formula but as an “evolution of a framework of already existing skills and culture to be re-drawn and finalised over a suitable time frame.”
Industry 4.0 as a path then, in which everything should be included, not only technologies. More cultural than technical.
Verso un manifatturiero italiano 4.0. Ricerca tecnologia e non solo (Towards an Italian manufacturing 4.0. Technological research and much more besides).
Sesto Viticoli
Guerini, 2017
New technologies are not enough for the future of manufacturing
Industry 4.0 is easy enough to say.. But we also need to make it happen and, above all, to fill it with substance and with people. Without forgetting both the short and long term context where Industry 4.0 is being applied. In other words, this new industrial model should certainly be taken into consideration and implemented, but you shouldn’t stop there.
It is from this position that Sesto Viticoli has decided to write “Verso un manifatturiero italiano 4.0. Ricerca tecnologia e non solo” (Towards an Italian manufacturing 4.0. Technological research and much more besides). The meaning of the book is found in the sub-heading: “Technological research and much more besides”. Reasoning leads us to recognise that the manufacturing industry certainly has a central role to play in both advanced and developing economies and that its future can only be imagined in the form of the Industry 4.0 model.The problem, according to Viticoli, starts here.
The debate currently underway – as explained in the first pages of the book – is dominated by the importance of introducing digital technologies (IoT, big data, artificial intelligence, the cloud, advanced automation and so on) within company processes and organisations, as though a particularly technological asset alone would resolve all the problems and challenges, as well as deficiencies, which have accumulated in the Italian industrial system since before the beginning of the crisis.
For Viticoli, more is needed. And before anything else, we need to take a wider view of the situation in terms of possible developments. The book therefore begins with an analysis of “what’s happening in the world”, before moving on to ways in which to “build a future” and the available technological tools. The jump in quality soon follows. Viticoli examines the need for manufacturing companies to adapt to Industry 4.0, for training and the creation of business networks and for the capacity for technological transfers and the transformation of relations between the public and private spheres.
To support this, the author has collected a series of accounts from the FCA, Ericsson, Farmindustria, Fincantieri, LFoundry, Pirelli, Thales Alenia Space, Telecom, Cnr, Enea and Scuola Normale Pisa.
Viticoli’s book is important because it tells us about what’s happening now and above all because it looks at Industry 4.0 not as a magic formula but as an “evolution of a framework of already existing skills and culture to be re-drawn and finalised over a suitable time frame.”
Industry 4.0 as a path then, in which everything should be included, not only technologies. More cultural than technical.
Verso un manifatturiero italiano 4.0. Ricerca tecnologia e non solo (Towards an Italian manufacturing 4.0. Technological research and much more besides).
Sesto Viticoli
Guerini, 2017