The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Industry 4.0. No matter what you call it, digital technology has upended the way automakers and suppliers do business.
Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz has defined Industry 4.0 as "networking the entire automotive value chain—from design, through production, to sales and service."
Boston Consulting Group has identified nine technologies that are driving Industry 4.0:
- Additive manufacturing;
- Augmented reality;
- Autonomous robots;
- Big data and analytics;
- The cloud;
- Cybersecurity;
- Horizontal and vertical system integration;
- The Industrial Internet of Things; and
- Simulation.
The above gallery features some of the ways the industry has incorporated these innovations.
