—Nothing, nothing, then everything everywhere all at once?
Industrie 4.0 as a concept originated in Germany, in 2011. After a two-year hiatus due to Covid-19, Hannover Messe is back—and industry is operating amid a series of crises that are causing a fresh look at what problems technology can solve. Or as Cedrik Neike, CEO of digital industries for Siemens, likes to think of it, Industrie 4.0 has been like a ketchup bottle: All the efforts to get things flowing haven’t produced much. But now, so he says, enough pressure has built up to the point that things are ready to explode.
And what are these new pressures? Siemens cites multiple societal-level crises—a climate crisis that companies and most governments are pledging (and increasingly, regulating) to address; the energy crisis precipitated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Germany, Neike notes, gets 55% of its fuel from Russia); and the supply chain crunch, particularly in semiconductors, that has resulted in higher costs and shortages of materials and goods around the world, compounded by a shortage of skilled workers. These things are all in various ways upping the pressure on companies to rethink their fuel use, their overall efficiency and their use of automation, according to Siemens.
The long and mostly-stable years previous drove technology development and innovation, but not necessarily implementation and widespread adoption. Will an inflationary period of ratcheted-up geopolitical tensions and lingering pandemic impacts prove out the value of Industrie 4.0 and sustainability investments? Siemens’ Gunter Beitinger, who runs its Amberg smart factory, tells the Messe audience that those who previously invested in sustainability initiatives now have a competitive advantage—because, largely, sustainability means using less energy or using energy more efficiently. As fossil fuel costs skyrocket, this has real, tangible impacts on the bottom line.
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