Industry 4.0, Artificial Intelligence and More

Manufacturing and delivering better quality products for companies at less costs and shorter times is always one of the most important goals. This is the source of the company's competitiveness and permanence. In a sense, it is planning the future! One way of planning a successful future in industry is, Industry 4.0. Together with Industry 4.0, there are significant improvements in productivity, income, employment and investment.

According to the calculations made, in the next 5-10 years, more companies will adopt the concept of Industry 4.0 and the productivity increase will result in around 90-150 billion Euros in the manufacturing industry.

In addition to the fact that the existing plants will undergo a major transformation with the application of Industry 4.0, this revolution will also bring forth the factory models of the future.

These plants can be grouped under 3 main categories: smart automated, customer-centric and e-plant in a box. Smart automated factories, with full automation and digitalization, meet the low cost mass production needs. Customer-centric factories are suitable for businesses that are able to respond quickly to customer requests and provide personalized products at affordable prices. Finally, factories in the e-plant in a box category meet the needs of small-scale and highly mobilized business models that will manufacture for niche and remote markets.

BMW's i3 plant in Leipzig is one of the most important examples of smart automated mills. In the factory where robots are used at all stages of production, including paints and assemblies of vehicles, instant product tracking can be done with RFID. Field operators can see all data related to the factory via the tablets in their hands.

It is evident that although the concrete practices of the Industry 4.0 vision will increase rapidly, companies and countries will allocate more resources to this issue in the coming years. It can be seen from the data that, important industrial countries are competing to be the pioneers of the last industrial revolution. We see that the advantage of China's cheap labor force in mass production is now at its end. In the coming years, when the robots begin to produce better quality products at much cheaper prices, countries and companies that have not taken the necessary steps for Industry 4.0 will not have the chance to compete. If Turkey does not adapt to these changes right away and if correct steps are not to be taken, especially in the field of education, there won’t be a place in the passage of Industry 4.0 for Turkey.