Having just finished the Bilbao Biennial Machine Tool Fair (BIEMH), I have a reflection to share with you: for me it was the first time that I had attended this event, given that I come from another sector, and I have been able to see what seduced me about the project materialise on a large scale.
It is already undeniable that the industrial sector is evolving towards a profound digitalisation and management of all the data present in its processes, with the aim of making the efficiency parameters present in them objective and transparent, generating new business models that were invisible until now and negotiating with a different type of value: the famous 4.0 revolution.
Although Hall 4 at the BEC was exclusively dedicated to the digitalisation brought about by Industry 4.0, in the other halls housing more industrial or traditional processes, so to speak, it was also clear to see how these sectors were drifting towards this reality.
In the interesting talks at BeDigital, I was able to observe the positioning that important companies in the sector are pursuing in the field of digitalisation and Industry 4.0.
This new era of production is already being offered as a commodity by major engineering companies, and telcos are establishing themselves as the platforms on which to develop big data management services. Although one of the main resistances that the 4.0 revolution is currently facing is the lack of interconnection of data from different sources, the big names are also offering their capacities for the deployment of a large number of sensors and data collectors, and the growing offer together with the technological evolution means that this implementation can already be considered at reasonable costs for an organisation.
Advances in technology have made it possible to capture more data in two years than all the data in the history of mankind. Production companies, through new technologies, are able to improve their production efficiency, produce smaller and more personalised batches, and reduce delivery times. The competition for companies is no longer the neighbouring companies in the region, but those on the other side of the pond. There is talk of being able to predict and anticipate the order that a customer is going to place, there is talk of being able to sell results or intangibles and not products, there is talk that it is now society that is going to transform industry, when until now it has been industry that has transformed society, there is talk of the exchange of value without intermediaries (Blockchain) and there is even talk of being able to cure cancer with big data techniques.
This trend shows how this new era is coming, if it has not already arrived. We are all in the race to achieve a good market position, and most industries realise (they should) that, in order to remain a market leader, it is a revolution that they must take on and implement little by little in their organisations. More than a trend, it is Darwin in its purest form.
