Analysis Of European Investments In Industry 4.0

Companies surveyed foresee that up to 2020 and over will invest a huge amount of money in Industry 4. 0. Into specific around 3, 3% of revenues each year that is equal to the half of the expected investments in new capital considered essential for each industry sector. Translating these percentages in number, we can see that we are talking about 140 billion euro in the entire European Union. Therefore, 25% of the firms surveyed do not consider a priority to channel significant investments into industry 4. 0. By contrast, one third of the respondents see this as an important investment challenge because this revolution give the opportunity to increase efficiency and ensure competitiveness. Companies that we are talking about consider the fourth industrial revolution one of the main opportunities that they can face. In fact, they present a level of investment per year over the average, exactly it is over four percent of annual revenues. In fact, 65% percent of companies interviews do not surpass the 3% because they do not believe enough in the fourth industrial revolution.

The aims of Industry 4. 0 are mainly two, namely improve the efficiency not only of the production process and improve the productivity in order to increase the volume of affairs for all the stakeholders involved along the supply-chain. As we can see from the chart below participants know that if they want to benefits from Industry 4. 0, they have to put their effort in all functions of their company. In addition, they have to pull their supplier at the start and at the end of the value chain to follow the revolution, because a producer alone can not deploy all the benefits that Industry 4. 0 can give. Therefore, looking to the chart we can see that companies are investing more money in all regard the production process implementing the technology of Cyber Physical System in production in order to be flexible and more efficiency, while for all regard the supply chain they are investing in Internet of Things in order to track all parts and products.

The study takes in consideration different industry sectors, those that are considered of primary importance for the future development of the European Union. For each industry sector has been calculated the level of investments in percentage of the revenues reached each year. From a first look, it is easy to understand that Manufacturing and Information technologies companies are those that invest more in Industry 4. 0. But how much? Information and communication companies invest around the 3. 9 percent, while manufacturing companies in average spend 3. 5 percent per year. Those are incredible numbers, but into specific each industry sector differentiate the type of investment. In fact IT companies are looking for smart products and services embedded of computational power from the manufacture to logistic sector.

Manufacturing firms are focused on physical production of products are interested in developing the automation equipment to an higher level of independence and flexibility. This is possible with a specific focus on real time data acquisition and data analysis for predictive maintenance along the entire supply chain. However, the process Industry sector can be considered as the tail end in planned investments in Industry 4. 0, in fact it is the last one compared to the. Therefore, enterprises all over the European Union have understood that through Industry 4. 0 investments they can elevate their business thanks to new solutions and improve customer satisfaction. According to the different needs that each company has, anyway we can synthetize Industry 4. 0 as a recipe for a long success and firms are going to understand it seeing the level of investments and efforts that they are putting to make possible it.