Industry 5.0: The Human Touch in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

We live in a time of rapid technological advancements, where Industry 4.0 is already revolutionizing how businesses operate, with automation and intelligent technologies becoming increasingly prevalent in industrial processes. However, as we embrace the era of digitalization and smart factories, there's a growing recognition that technology alone is not enough to create sustainable and meaningful progress. To achieve that, we need to balance technological innovation with a human touch – and that's where Industry 5.0 comes in. What is Industry 5.0? Industry 5.0 is a concept that represents the convergence of the latest technological advances with human-centric values, ethics, and principles. It aims to put human beings at the center of industrial processes and empower them to leverage the full potential of new technologies while focusing on social responsibility, environmental sustainability, and overall well-being. Industry 5.0 builds on the three previous industrial revolutions, each of which brought significant changes to the way we work and live: Industry 1.0: The first industrial revolution started in the late 18th century with the invention of the steam engine, which marked the transition from manual labor to machine-based manufacturing. Industry 2.0: The second industrial revolution began in the early 20th century…

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The top five most digitally mature industry sectors in 2022

According to an international report launched by the World Economic Forum – in partnership with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) – the top five most digitally mature sectors in 2022 are Semiconductors, Electronics, Pharmaceuticals, Energy & Chemicals and Logistics. You can find the full report here. The top four most mature industry groups in 2022 are the same from 2019: Semiconductors, Electronics, Pharmaceuticals and Energy & Chemicals. The middle two traded between the second and third spots from the previous rankings published in November 2019. In spite of their frontrunning positions, the top three industries – predominantly comprising multinational conglomerates – are not shielded from present-day challenges like the ongoing value-chain disruptions, global chip shortage and industrial decarbonization. The Logistics industry group has improved over the past three years to take fifth place. Operations in logistics have changed dramatically as a result of two key considerations. First off, the sector has been motivated to modernize and optimize its operations in order to meet growing demands as a result of the unrivaled rise of online shopping. Second, the rise of e-commerce titans like Amazon, Alibaba, and JD.com has forced conventional logistics firms to become more responsive, adaptable,…

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How to use Digital Transformation in Industry to revolutionize your factory

There is a lot of talk about Digital Transformation in Industry and what impacts these changes will have on the day-to-day operations on the shop floor. However, most of the articles found are more about the concepts of digital transformation in industry. They are not really helping companies use digital transformation in industry to revolutionize factory operations. In the manufacturing industry universe, digital transformations are mostly related to growth through Industry 4.0 and other technologies. Companies of all sizes are achieving admirable results in their business through digital transformation efforts, such as product and service improvements, increased operational efficiency, innovations, and greater flexibility throughout the production chain. Broadly speaking, we can say that to get real benefits from digital transformation in industry requires integrating digital technologies into all areas of a factory, dramatically changing the way companies derive value from their data and information. It seems strange to say this in the current context of Industry 4.0, but many companies still don't appreciate the importance of real-time data collection and processing.  Now we will present some fundamentals for using digital transformation in industry and getting real benefits: 1 _ Establish your goal   Here at PackIOT we have…

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What is Unified Namespace and why you need to implement it to experience Industry 4.0

By  Mario Ishikawa and Alexandre Patrus Many digital transformation actors are not yet familiar with Unified Namespace. Also abbreviated as UNS, this term was coined by Walker Reynolds, president of 4.0 Solutions, to designate a concept that allows real-time processing and traffic of contextualized, normalized, and aggregated information. Therefore, the UNS is neither a product nor a system, but a central tool for the Industry 4.0 scenario. And in this article we will explain why. It is very common for people to think that there is no data collection and processing problem in their companies, because the Industry 3.0 and factory automation scenario already works with data collection. However, when we talk abou Industry 4.0, we are talking about a much larger amount of equipment connected to a plant's network. And the UNS comes to help enabling the scalability of your digital transformation strategy. Industry 3.0 x Industry 4.0: what are the main differences in data flow? In this example, we can see a typical Industry 3.0 scenario: data flows in one direction only. It goes from the sensors to the PLCs, from the PLCs to the SCADA or MES systems, and sometimes also to the ERP.…

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Key Steps To Start Deploying Analytics On The Shop Floor

By Mario Ishikawa, CTO at PackIOT Industry 4.0 is happening but the reality is that most companies are handling data on paper. To think about analytics on the shop floor, one of the first things to be done is to automate not only the process, but the data collection and transformation. This is a key step to think about Artificial Intelligence or other terms like Digital Twins and that is how Industry 4.0 has to start. Can you imagine a Digital Twin relying on manual input? It does not even make sense, so before we talk about it we have to make sure we have all the required data available in open format, as opposed to data silos, and collected in an automated process. So, how to start with Analytics? And where? It is good to start thinking about what you want to measure. Thinking about analytics, you probably want a good picture of how the production process is going, how machines and shifts are performing so you can understand how it can be improved. And this is where OEE takes place. OEE stands for Overall Equipment Efficiency and was coined by Seiichi Nakajima. OEE basically transforms…

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Only 18% of packaging industries are able to track productivity in real time – research says

Much is being said about the future of the packaging industry and the impacts of digital transformation. But few analysts and experts have been able to substantiate the trends or comment on them. This was PackIOT's intention in conducting the first international survey of digital maturity in the packaging industry, developed with the support of the Instituto das Emabalagens (BR), People From Packaging (USA), and Packaging 360 (India). The report reveals that more than half of the packaging producing industries are unable to pinpoint, in real-time, where bottlenecks are on the production line. The market analysis was attended by more than 150 packaging industry professionals from over 25 countries and concludes that 12% of companies say that identifying bottlenecks and analyzing correct data is a real struggle for them. And the data mentioned in the headline of this article was one of the most striking. 82% of packaging industries cannot track productivity in real-time. The study also shows that two out of three companies have no means of monitoring and tracking their plants' productivity and OEE goals in real-time. Half of the industries only have access to this information at certain times. The OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) is…

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Digital Maturity in the Packaging Industry has a long way to go, tells international report

To help people better understand how dig into Industry 4.0 and Digital Transformation the Packaging Industry is, PackIOT developed a new study called Digital Maturity in the Packaging Industry. We invited people, from 28 different countries, to describe their packaging factories, data collection and data analysis processes, the metrics and KPIs they follow and softwares they use. Download it now for free! In particular, we were interested in understanding what is the level of digital maturity that the packaging industry is experiencing. We also asked what kind of softwares and tools they have in the factories: ERP, MES, Production Analytics, PLCs. And what kind of production insights they are able to access with those tools. We discovered that the survey findings' identifies a lot of room for improvement in the Packaging Industry. Companies struggle to identify their bottlenecks and to keep track of their OEE. Automatic data collection is not a trend yet, goals are not openly discussed and few plants know if they are on track on planned downtimes. I want to see the full report! You will also be able to compare your plant to others based on the number of employees. Some other insights…

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Your factory may truly disappear if you don’t take care of digitalization. And this is not a rumor

It is hard to talk about the disappearance of companies, the innovation gap, or the loss of market potential without remembering Kodak. If this story is already familiar to you, feel free to skip to the next topic. If not, read it carefully (please). If we stepped back in time a couple of decades to buy a camera: it would not be strange if the camera, its film, and finally the photograph were provided by the same supplier: Kodak. The famous company was founded in 1888 and for a long time one of the most valuable brands in the USA. Knowing the rise and fall of Kodak is an excellent way to understand how difficult it is to maintain a great business in this world of dizzying changes, where it is usual to see giants of the industry fall. The case of Kodak is exemplary: the first digital camera was born in their laboratories (1975) and they began to launch their first digital cameras to the market in the nineties. They were warned at least 10 years in advance of the relevance that digital photography would have and still went under. In 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy.…

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How to convince your boss to bet on digital transformation

We are already familiar with the story of having to convince someone about digital transformation: you found a fast, cheap and efficient solution for your factory, you left the last project meeting excited, but you still don't know how to persuade your boss. The ROI is positive, he can take a lot of benefits from it, so can you, and the company will win. But you can't make him/her jump in. It can be frustrating to go through a situation like the one above. But the idea of this article is to help you implement something new by convincing your boss of how important it is for everyone. And that's the first tip: everyone needs to realize that they are winning. First of all: it's all about negotiation Like it or not, you are a negotiator. Negotiation is a fact of life. These two sentences open one of the most important and best-selling books on the art of negotiating, "Getting to Yes" (Penguin Books), by authors William L. Ury, Roger Fisher. If we are all the time making agreements and resolving conflicts of interest in our lives, it is also true that, in a negotiation, the road…

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PackIOT has been shortlisted for NOS and AWS innovation program on 5G

We are honored to announce that we have been selected to be part of the 5G Accelerator - Collaborative innovation program is an initiative by NOS and AWS (Amazon Web Services), in partnership with Startup Lisboa, to accelerate 5G transformation and innovation in Portugal. With much faster speeds (up to 10 times faster than 4G), low latency (instant and real-time response to any command), and the ability to connect millions of devices, 5G will be one of the main drivers of the digital economy. There were only 15 companies selected from a list of hundreds of competitors, and PackIOT is the only one focused 100% on technology for the manufacturing industry. "We are very excited to be part of this program. 5G technology is going to have a big impact on production processes and in the digital transformation of the industry. And this is all part of our mission and vision"- Cristiano Wuerzius, CEO of PackIOT. With this program, NOS and AWS intend to support the construction of an ecosystem of innovation and 5G entrepreneurship ecosystem in Portugal, leading the digital transformation and fostering the creation of opportunities associated with the new mobile technology.

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