AI and the Human Element in Industry 4.0

This week’s guest is Jeff Winter, Sr. Director of Industry Strategy for Manufacturing at Hitachi Solutions.

Jeff offers his insights into the history of the Industry 4.0 movement and how he expects it to evolve in the coming years. His discussion highlights the balance between AI and human ingenuity, the role of frontline workers in an increasingly automated manufacturing environment, and the untapped potential of manufacturing data.

Questions Jeff answers in this episode:

1. Do you think 2023 was an interesting year for our industry?

2. What is your take on the state of Industry 4.0 and what is the opportunity for Industry 4.0?

3. Where are the humans in industry 4. 0 and how should we think about it going forward?

4. How should people building and running production floors should think about these two juxtaposed approaches to automation?

5. What can we do with all this data? What can we do to get from all this data insights?

6. How can you explain the dissonance between the data-driven nature of knowledge work and the less data-centric approach in manufacturing?

7. Why is digital transformation so difficult, and what can companies do to successfully navigate the challenges of change management, top-down and bottom-up dynamics, and avoid what McKinsey calls "Pilot Purgatory"?

8. How can companies effectively utilize advanced dashboard technology and real-time factory monitoring to improve processes and incorporate human-centric aspects, considering the challenges of automation and generative AI? What should we expect to happen next in this area?

9. What are good, real applications of Gen AI?

Link to Augmented Ops’ original podcast page

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Sources Referenced:

• Google Trends - Worldwide Industry 4.0: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=Industry%204.0&hl=en

• Google Trends - U.S. Industry 4.0: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=Industry%204.0&hl=en

• MIT Sloan Management Review - Expanding AI’s Impact with Organizational Learning 2020: Expanding AI’s Impact With Organizational Learning (mit.edu)

• Forbes - The State of Enterprise Data Integration 2020: https://www.forbes.com/sites/louiscolumbus/2020/03/29/the-state-of-enterprise-data-integration-2020/?sh=27f7d93ac466

• Morgan Stanley - Engineering the 21st Century Digital Factory 2017 (Since 2010, manufacturing has collected 2,000 petabytes of potentially valuable data, but discarded 99% of it): https://www.morganstanley.com.au/Ideas/manufacturing-a-digital-future

• HBR - What’s Your Data Strategy 2017 (less than 1% of an organization's unstructured data is analyzed or used at all) : https://hbr.org/webinar/2017/04/whats-your-data-strategy#:~:text=On%20average%2C%20less%20than%2050,simply%20discovering%20and%20preparing%20data.

• PTC’s The State of Digital Thread report 2021: https://www.liveworx.com/blog/report-the-state-of-digital-thread

• World Economic Forum - Global Lighthouse Network (153 lighthouses): https://initiatives.weforum.org/global-lighthouse-network/lighthouses