WHAT IS INDUSTRY 4.0?
Industry 4.0 is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which makes the means of production efficient, flexible and “smart” through the advanced integration of digitalization, automation, artificial intelligence and data analytics. At its center stand sustainability, resource saving, energy efficiency and the vision of “Smart Factories”, and the aim is production that is environmentally responsible, flexible and high in added value.
The Effects of Industry 4.0 on Environmental Sustainability: An Assessment from the Perspective of Economics and Administrative Sciences
Also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Industry 4.0 centers on the advanced use of digitalization and automation and sets out to make the means of production more efficient and more flexible. Sustainability, which may be taken as its basic purpose, lies at the heart of the Industry 4.0 initiative. Inefficient use of resources blocks the path to sustainability. For that reason, saving resources, high efficiency and making production processes “smart” are among the aims of this new revolution. The “Smart Factories” that can be built by bringing advanced technological capabilities together reflect the vision of Industry 4.0. Production speed rises and costs fall as a result. Product quality is also expected to improve, flexibility in production to increase, and diagnosis — the first step toward solving any problem that arises — to become easier.
That the Industry 4.0 revolution focuses on a sustainable understanding of production also matters for environmental awareness. Without environmental sustainability, sustainability cannot be secured in any field. In the traditional industrial mindset, the absence of any sensitivity toward the efficiency and sustainability of resources opened the way to environmental disasters and weakened the production mechanism itself. With the capabilities the Industry 4.0 initiative provides, following and optimizing every stage of production down to the finest detail first of all raises energy efficiency. It also helps save raw material and water. Beyond that, the failure of waste management, which heads the list of causes of environmental disaster, becomes something that can be fought with these new capabilities. Air pollution in cities and global warming can then be tackled.
A green economy and zero waste targets are among the principles of the Industry 4.0 revolution in the context of environmental sustainability. Within this framework it becomes possible to reduce the carbon footprint, the measure of the harm human activity does to the environment. Reducing the carbon footprint and using natural resources efficiently also helps protect biodiversity, one of the basic dynamics of environmental sustainability. It should not be forgotten here that adopting these new technologies and keeping environmental sustainability targets in the foreground will be difficult in cost terms for small businesses in particular. Compulsory measures directed at businesses in the name of environmental sustainability therefore have to be workable. At the same time, whatever their purpose, targets must not be of a kind that crosses ethical boundaries.
Businesses need to build the innovations covered by Industry 4.0 into their own structures if they are to reach many of their goals. In the context of strategic management in particular, they should integrate into their management approach the technological capabilities that count as part of Industry 4.0, artificial intelligence and large databases among them, in order to gain competitive advantage and secure sustainability. The hierarchical structure that holds a central role in the traditional understanding of management should, in this new management perspective, put cooperation to the fore through a more flexible organizational chart. Such cooperation makes sounder and more accurate decisions possible.
Industry 4.0 concerns the field of business administration as much as it concerns engineering. Decision-making processes, production mechanisms and greater transparency and accessibility in supply chains are matters directly connected to business administration and always in need of development. The cost-related parts of production processes in particular need to be optimized with the broad means that new technological developments provide. Those who deliver this are graduates of the faculties of economics and administrative sciences, even if they are not seen as part of the production process itself. Students and graduates of these faculties need a digital outlook directed toward application rather than theoretical knowledge alone, and they need to keep developing it. Those who manage this process of change and adapt to it can make serious contributions to businesses within the new forms of production. At the same time, the foremost goal of these faculties, which exist in every region of Türkiye, should be to adapt themselves to changing conditions, to update their curricula with a focus on artificial intelligence in particular, and to train students who will contribute to production processes. Businesses, for their part, should make the students and graduates of these faculties part of their decision-making processes, from a strategic management perspective and in line with both Industry 4.0 and environmental sustainability targets.
Author:
Erzurum Technical University
Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences