Leyton is an international consulting firm that helps businesses leverage financial incentives to accelerate their growth and achieve long-lasting performance.
We can undoubtedly say that the new era of Intelligent Industry, in which the physical and virtual worlds converge through technology, has begun.
We are talking about a new era of digital transformation, an evolution of Industry 4.0: the next step from the current context and which will lead us straight to Industry 5.0.
Leading industry and technology representatives emphasize how the growing synergy between products, software, and services represents the next big transformation opportunity for organizations.
“Intelligent Industry is about fostering synergies between the digital and engineering worlds, enabling companies to create intelligent products, services, and processes at scale,” said Roshan Gya, Managing Director, Intelligent Industry at Capgemini.
The rapid rise of specific technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), cloud, 5G, and edge computing is critical to driving the next phase of transformation in all aspects of customer interaction, operations, industrial manufacturing, and supply chain.
All of these elements represent the beginning of a new era for Intelligent Industry, one that will inevitably propel us well beyond Industry 4.0.
This is not just a feeling or a thought of a few, but evidence from business leaders, entrepreneurs, technology experts, and academics that shows the development of three key areas such as software, connectivity, and semiconductors that are completely reshaping traditional industries.
Experience shows us how business processes are further evolving with a strong increase in interconnected products thanks mainly to technologies such as 5G and edge.
All this allows applying a set of processes that were unimaginable in the recent past, autonomous driving (self-driving vehicles) and other types of automated robots, remote management of operations are increasingly becoming the norm in a system that is unequivocally geared towards continuous change.
Consider the digital twins who are implementing an energetic and constant convergence, reducing the gap between virtual systems and the physical world thanks to real-time models that can be systematically updated and optimized.
There’s no doubt that organizations (at multiple levels) need to harness the potential of data to make the path to Intelligent Industry successful, achieving new and differentiated smart products, even leaner and more efficient supply chains, and higher quality customer experiences.
To do this, however, there is a need for an additional push for innovation that can bring continuity to the evolution process that has begun in recent years. “Over the past few decades, organizations have focused on incremental change and enhancing traditional operational efficiencies, but I believe this approach has run its course. Soon, a much deeper transformation will be required, involving completely new uses of emerging technologies and causing the digitization of manufacturing and the re-engineering of entire processes” said Börje Ekholm, President, and CEO of Ericsson.
On closer inspection, Intelligent Industry represents the next generation of digital transformation, with diverse innovation possibilities for a future where progress and sustainability go hand in hand.
This represents an opportunity for development that, by necessity, will have to take into consideration a kind of growth that will have to monitor the environmental aspects that, today as never before, are imposed as fundamental parameters that cannot be ignored.
Finally, considering how these issues are a fundamental part of the support plans for companies put in place by government bodies, it is clear that being open to these additional opportunities can represent for the entire business world (and not only) an effective tool that will allow us to keep pace with change and to fully enjoy it for a further improvement of the reality that surrounds us.
Carlo Martelli Senior Business Developer – Leyton Italia
