As mentioned in our Industry 4.0 overview, the concept of Industry 4.0 is now worldwide in scope. Industry 4.0 has gone global but ‘worldwide in scope’ sounds better and it’s precisely what industrial IoT specialist PTC states in a series of announcements in the context of a global Industry 4.0 strategy.
According to the company, the Industrie 4.0 concept is among others the blueprint for Made in China 2025, one of the many initiatives across the globe in smart manufacturing (and mentioned in that ‘gone global’ overview). It certainly is also the essence of the over 12 initiatives in the EU (and counting) which we mentioned in our article on the EU’s plans to boost manufacturing and industry transformation.
The Industry 4.0 Platform also collaborates with Japan’s Robot Revolution Initiative (which is joined by the far-reaching Society 5.0 initiative) and with the Industrial Internet Consortium. According to PTC, Industrie 4.0 also ‘heavily influences’ Smart Manufacturing in the US.
Industrie 4.0 heavily influences Smart Manufacturing initiatives in the United States (PTC)
Industrie 4.0 Digital Capability Centers across the globe
PTC aims to take the global adoption of Industry 4.0 further, just as Infosys did when it conducted multi-country Industry 4.0 research with the Institute for Industrial Management (FIR) at the RWTH Aachen University and joined the consortium that developed the Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index.
A first step in the acceleration of its Industrie 4.0 strategy acceleration as PTC calls it is its participation in the creation of a global network of Industrie 4.0 Digital Capability Centers.
To do so, PTC struck a partnership with McKinsey & Company. The first Industrie 4.0 Digital Capability Center opened in Aachen (Germany) on March 30th, 2017. McKinsey plays a key role in these Digital Capability Centers. The DCC Aachen was founded by McKinsey and Germany’s Institut für Textiltechnik of RWTH Aachen University as a joint partnership with PTC and other companies.
Of course it wouldn’t be a global initiative if the DCCs would only be opened in the land where Industrie 4.0 was born. Other cities on the list with Industrie 4.0 Digital Capability Centers include Singapore, Beijing, Chicago and Italy’s Venice.
Visitors of DCCs can expect a realistic production environment PTC states, along with, quote “digital Industry 4.0 showcases and capability-building workshops to promote skills training and Industrie 4.0 awareness”.
The Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index has landed at PTC
Among several other announcements on the solution and partnership front PTC also says that it has contributed to the mentioned Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index.
As a member of the acatech consortium (acatech is the German Academy of Science and Engineering which coined the term Industrie 4.0) PTC enables you to download the Industrie 4.0 Maturity Index. As a reminder: the development of the Maturity Index was announced in April 2016 and the index was due in April 2017.
On top of being a tool to assess Industry 4.0 readiness, it allows companies to build a roadmap including the necessary steps to take, depending on their individual purpose, situation, gap analysis and strategy. The latter, a lack of strategy, is one of the most often cited issues in Industry 4.0.
Industrie 4.0 is the transformation of manufacturing through the adoption of smart, connected products and smart, connected operations (PTC)
PTC also states that, while it is most often associated with manufacturing, adjacent market segments, including utilities, smart cities, oil and gas, and healthcare, have begun to embrace Industrie 4.0 principles and technologies.
Finally, note that PTC is delivering new connected operations applications, built upon its ThingWorx Industrial IoT platform, which aim to “unify and contextualize digital data from enterprise IT systems with operational and physical data from machines and sensors“.
And that should help manufacturers to move faster to the Industry 4.0 reality.
Disclaimer: we are not paid nor solicited to write this entry nor have commercial relationships with PTC (or Infosys for that matter).
