Manufacturing industry and IT experts all agree: the convergence of automation and the Internet will revolutionise the entire industrial sector over the next 10 years. The technologies and processes underlying that trend can be described in a few keywords: in Germany, for example, the term “Industry 4.0” has become established, while in the USA terms used include “Industrial Internet”; others talk about “Smart Manufacturing”. But what they all mean is the convergence of physical industrial machines, including their sensors, drives and other components, with the virtual world comprising software applications and the Internet.
When analysing the market potential entailed by that convergence, however, market researchers reach different findings: Wikibon, for example, predicts global investment in the relevant technologies of up to 514 billion Dollars by 2020. By contrast, MarketsandMarkets forecasts a market worth just under 320 billion Dollars in 2020. Yet even that would represent an impressive 8 percent annual growth rate based on 2014 market volumes.
Implementing Industry 4.0 offers major opportunities for the electronics industry in particular, because “smart” components equipped with microprocessors and communication modules are its foundations. MarketsandMarkets predicts that the smart sensors market alone will grow at an average yearly rate of 36 percent to reach a total value of 10.46 billion Dollars by 2020. Smart Manufacturing will also entail increasing use of RFID. The latest analysis by Frost & Sullivan predicts that RFID applications in industry will quadruple by 2020 to a value of 5 billion Dollars. Industry 4.0 will also become a key market for semiconductors. IC Insights’ “IC Market Drivers 2015” report predicts that sales of ICs will rise from their current level of 1.13 billion to 4.14 billion Dollars by 2018.
High-tech communications, low-cost sensors and powerful computers are opening up new possibilities for collecting, evaluating and integrating an ever widening range of data from industrial plant in order to enhance efficiency, optimise maintenance and cut energy costs. Industry 4.0 will thus bring about a new era of economic growth and competitiveness. In order to enjoy those benefits, innovative electronic components as well as specialist know-how in relation to Industry 4.0 technologies, markets and standards will be essential.
Realisation of Industry 4.0
