Industry 5.0: the future of companies
Industry 5.0 has its roots in its predecessor, Industry 4.0, as a strategic project to provide the country (Germany) with high-tech-based industrial resources within reach of scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs. Some visionaries are already focusing on the next industrial revolution, Industry 5.0. This technological revolution aims to empower the transformation of the industrial sector into smart spaces based on IoT and cognitive computing. In this sense, this technology seeks to unite machines and humans or, in other words, to develop Artificial Intelligence so that it can perform processes similar to those executed by human thought.
During its more than 10 years of life, Industry 4.0 has focused less on the original principles of social equity and sustainability and more on digitalization and digital enabling technologies (DETs), such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), to increase production efficiency and flexibility.
Thus, the Industry 5.0 concept provides a different approach and highlights the importance of research and innovation to support the industry in its long-term service and humanity within the limits of the Planet.
The concepts of Society 5.0 and Industry 5.0 are related in the sense that both concepts refer to a fundamental shift of our society and economy towards a new paradigm.
The Society 5.0 concept, driven by the Japanese government, carries the dimensions of digitalization and transformation, located primarily at the level at which people secure their livelihoods and is directly related to how they build their society.
The numbering up to number 5 results from a very different and much longer time scale than that of the industrial revolutions:
- The first 2 societies correspond to the pre-industrial periods (until the end of the 18th century) and are respectively related to the hunting, gathering, and agricultural economy.
- Society 3.0 is an industrial society and corresponds more or less to the period of the first, second, and part of the third industrial revolution.
- Society 4.0 is characterized by the dominance of information, and we can say that it evolved from a highly digitized version of the third industrial revolution to the present day.
- Society 5.0 attempts to balance economic development with the resolution of social and environmental problems, i.e., it is not limited to the manufacturing sector but addresses broader social challenges based on the integration of physical and virtual spaces.
- Society 5.0 is a society in which advanced Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) are actively used to raise people’s quality of life in an environment of responsibility towards the Planet.
Other key aspects of this concept are resilience, applied, for example, to production chains or labor inclusion, making technology an enabling and integrating factor rather than a limiting and excluding one.
Industrial evolution is focused on a transition or strategy based fundamentally on: sustainability and the circular economy, where the focus is not only on environmental conservation and resource optimization but also on people and the development of solutions, supported by exponential technologies, that respond to their needs and benefit them, going beyond efficiency and productivity, using digital transformation as a means and not as an end, and reinforcing the contribution and key role of industry for society in areas such as conservation and eco-intelligent exploitation of resources, or the fight against climate change.
While it is true that the technological progress implicit in this fifth industrial revolution will destroy jobs, some jobs will be restructured to facilitate human labor.
- Personalized manufacturing. Industry 5.0 will drive the creation of customized products. Today, we have an almost infinite range of products, so the next step is to tailor them to individual needs.
- Deployment of robots. To make the previous point a reality, the help of collaborative robots is needed. The robots, hand in hand with human ingenuity, will be responsible for generating the products. Thus, these cyborgs will be the fundamental key to Industry 5.0.
- Human empowerment. Mechanical, dangerous, and routine tasks will be delegated to Artificial Intelligence. Even now, neural networks can do many things. They help police officers to identify criminals, artists, musicians, and even some essay writer can use a neural network to find synonyms and paraphrases. In this way, humans will have more time to carry out those tasks that only reason can perform.
- Speed and quality. The industrial production chain will be much faster thanks to the collaboration between robots and humans. In addition, any product produced in this environment will be of higher quality without sacrificing the human touch.
- Environmental friendliness. As technology improves, organizations are likely to develop production systems based on renewable energy. In this way, waste emissions could be reduced.
Advances in the industry are unstoppable. In fact, technological revolutions are occurring in ever-shorter timeframes. Although organizations will gradually adapt to the fifth industrial revolution, the foundations for the sixth will have already been laid along the way. These cycles feedback on each other, so it seems that we are going to live in a world of constant change.