Management Perspectives

In the past, manufacturing took place in small workshops with basic tools. The Industrial Revolution marked the transition to newer manufacturing processes in Great Britain, Continental Europe, and the United States. The steam engine, the age of science, mass production, and the rise of digital technology—known as IR1.0, IR2.0, IR3.0, and IR4.0—were the major Industrial Revolutions that changed the world.

IR1.0 was dominated by industries include mining, textiles, glass, and agriculture. Material cost and production time were impacted as demand was greater than supply; hence, there was great pressure on the lower working class. In IR 2.0, electricity allowed factories to develop modern production lines. Ford came to be known as the ‘father of the assembly line’ and ‘automotive mass manufacturing’.There was great economic growth with increase in productivity, but at the same time, unemployment increased as many factory workers were replaced by machines.

IR 3.0, also known as the Digital Revolution converted technology from Analog to Digital. The use of derived technologies—computers, microprocessors, cell phones, the internet, and the use of digital logic resulted in automation and mass production. Combination of physical assets and advanced digital technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), robots, drones, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing, cloud computing, and more resulted in a more flexible, responsive and intelligent data driven system in the current era of IR 4.0. Now, IR 5.0 marks the return of humans wherein automation will not replace humans but assist in augmenting their irreplaceable value, offering a fair growth environment.

IR 5.0: Power back to the humans

Quoting Elon Musk, “Humans are underrated.” Musk blamed excessive automation to be a mistake. Humans are the soul of any business, and human creativity, perception, and emotion cannot be replaced by robots. IR 5.0 explores the concept of humans working alongside robots and smart machines, where robots and machines are helping humans to inculcate the personal touch of humans by way of creative, perception, and emotions into automation and efficiency. To make it clear, ‘cobots’ or collaborative robots work amongst humans, and respond in real-time rather than the pre-programmed and isolated manner that industrial robots generally operate on.

Boston Dynamics, one of the pioneers in cobots, has developed Spot and Stretch who are helping industries with dangerous work zones to help humans with data regarding safety checks. Spot is working at Hyundai as a safety inspector. AI-powered robots have already found their space for book arrangement, sorting, retrieval, material handling, and inventory at NY Public Library, Temasek Polytechnic Library, UMKC Library, University of Chicago Library, Shanghai Library, and so on. Robbie can scan more than 32,000 books per day at Temasek Library and Bobbie is a social robot interacting with students and guests in delivering newspapers, magazines.

Shanghai library has a humanoid robot which will interact with students and clarify their doubts. The application of the humanoid robot Pepper at libraries in Germany and Switzerland promotes the idea of the library as a place to meet and work together in a pleasing, friendly atmosphere. Humanoid robots will soon find their prominent space in Indian libraries too. The future is that promising with technology.

Additionally, AI-based systems have greater opportunities in robotic surgery and a surgeon has an opportunity to carry out the procedures with telepresence. Hyper customisation by building technological platforms capable of expanding to any size and scale offers maximum possible product/service customisation flexibility to every customer in their requirements of pricing and convenience. The value of human intuition and associated problem-solving capabilities is irreplaceable even in a manufacturing concern, as there are many tasks that are executed efficiently and safely because of human judgment. There would be reduction in energy use, water use, emissions, waste generation, incorporating life cycle analysis to examine fully the environmental impact of different activities. Interactive products provide a 3D view of the product and give a user feel to the consumer guiding them on its usage and features in an interactive transparent way.

With the onset of the pandemic, remote and hybrid workplaces became a reality. The four-day week, one of the most powerful applications of human centric IR5.0, aided developing and developed countries in effective workforce mobilisation for productivity attainment and vanishing extended hours at the workplace. There were fewer redundant tasks, unproductive meetings, costly consultant hours, expensive on-site expenses; surprisingly all with an increased productivity angle to it. Work-life balance seemed to have been achieved.

Trade unions across continents are advocating the four-day week and some countries are already there, with Belgium having favoured it. The United Kingdom has followed suit by introducing the four-day working week starting June 2022. Microsoft, in 2019 experimented with the four-day work-week concept and that had a tremendous impact on their productivity. As IR 4.0 is still on, the characteristics of IR5.0 will focus on productivity requiring all to think and do differently which require the education system to run beyond degrees to deal with the challenges of sustainability and resilience for human centric interaction experiences. A responsive supply chain is always sensitive to the needs of the customer and does not depend on a physical order.

Blockchain technology is being used to seamlessly collaborate and maintain a trustworthy network between various suppliers, payment platforms, and inventory storage. Walmart is one of the biggest retailers who are successfully using blockchain technology in their supply chain management. Quick deliveries, customer satisfaction, accommodating seasonal, and open communication lines as agile as a business culture for rapidly changing customer demands by combining cognitive (human) and cyber physical (artificial) intelligent systems highlights the key characteristics of IR 5.0 supply chains. Smart organ printing, which is a 3D bioprinting and tissue engineering, collaborates in the making of live tissues using ‘bio-ink’. This technology greatly helps in the formation of tissue-like or cell-like structure, forming the basis for regenerative technology, where severed or amputated limbs/body parts may be regenerated to suit the body intended.

No doubt IR 5.0 is human centric with focus on socio environmental sustainability and brings the power back into the hands of humans. Industry 5.0 will bridge this gap to create future systems and services that focus on social and environmental aspects utilising data and technological advancements from Industry 4.0.