Industry 4.0 to 5.0: Inception, Conception and Perception

The main idea of Industry 5.0 is to use technology developed in Industry 4.0 and bring its benefits to human beings. The article discusses the seamless emergence of Industry 5.0 in detail.

- Kamal Goyal

The term Industry 4.0 is considered to be technologydriven, whereas Industry 5.0 is value-driven. However, between March and April 2020, entire production chains came to a standstill due to the COVID-19 pandemic on a global scale. If the disease only affects humans, why did the machines not continue to do their job? This moment helped us reflect on the role and importance of humans in the job market. We realised that, even though machinery and equipment can operationalise tasks, all industries still need people.

Industry 4.0 refers to the intelligent networking of machines and processes for the industry based on CyberPhysical Systems (CPS), a technology that achieves intelligent control using embedded networked systems to do much of the work in factories and production facilities. This is a technology-driven revolution to achieve higher efficiency and productivity as a high-tech strategy. Some considerations and projected impacts from societal needs, such as sustainability, human-centricity and resilience, are also visible. It intends to address challenges such as resource and energy efficiency, urban production, societal needs and demographic change. To reduce the consumption of energy and resources, changes in manufacturing processes and design of machinery and plant were required.

CPS promotes new socio-technical infrastructures by transforming different aspects of a workplace such as health management and work organisation, lifelong learning and career path models and team structures and knowledge management. This initiative is leading a paradigm shift in human–technology and human–environment interactions. It is anticipated that a worker’s role is set to change significantly due to the increased use of technologies that are more open, virtual and extensive.