SMART INDUSTRY: PROSPECTS AND CHALLENGES

Abstract

The article examines the current trends in the development of production systems related to the implementation of the principles of the fourth industrial revolution and the transition to a smart industry.
The primary link of the smart industry – smart factory – is a cyber-physical production system that has the ability to monitor and control the performance of the machinery and production personnel through industrial Internet of things, as well as to use collected “big data” to more accurately adjust to consumers, increase labor productivity, improve the technological processes and product quality.
Within the smart industry system, smart factories are interconnected with researchers, developers, suppliers, distributors, consumers etc., through information and communication technologies, thereby forming a global digital platform to improve coordination and active participation of all partners in both the individual chains and whole networks of value creation.
The high potential of the smart industry as a smart factories’ network is confirmed by the practice of a number of well-known companies in the world. At the same time, the greatest windows of opportunities are opening to reduce the research and production cycle, decrease machinery downtime, reduce the cost of its maintenance and the costs of maintaining stocks, as well as to automate mental work.
Full implementation of the smart industry’s potential depends on success in overcoming barriers to its development: technical (problems with computer networks, their compatibility and security), economic (high costs of accumulation and renovation of digital capital, problems in the areas of employment and income, including those due to the changing nature of work and a sharp increase in the role of STEM personnel), institutional (problems with the formation of new organizational routines and generally favorable institutional environment).
If these barriers could be overcome, the overall prospects for the smart industry in the world look promising. In the next decade, productions, implementing industrial technologies of the Internet of things, can make up the majority of the global manufacturing.