Industry 4.0. Introductory thoughts on the current situation

The joint future programme - platform of the German Government and representatives of the industrial sector
– Industry 4.0 consists in comprehensive and systematic digital networking of the creation, logistics and use of
products or services. It is often regarded as an impetus which will start the fourth industrial revolution. For conventional automation in analogous world, machines are programmed to take over single functions by responding to certain signals. The
scenarios of the Industry 4.0 platform comprise entire systems. These systems largely function independently both in responding to impulses, planning the following process stages and generation of the respective automation programmes and monitoring of the processes generated. The man-machine interaction points have changed in principle in that respect. The actual and digital, i.e. virtual world are increasingly merged. This creates a multi-level and intertwined data set which according to the estimates doubles in volume every two years and contains trillions of units (Big Data).