A patra revoluţie industrială a început. Este pregătită România pentru a face faţă sfidărilor acestei noi revoluţii

EU elaborated an ambitious program called Industry 4.0, with the aim of initiating a new industrial revolution. Material processing technologies have evolved in a disruptive manner during the time. Three major industrial revolutions can be identified when analyzing this evolution: first revolution – characterized by the extensive use of water and steam power, second revolution – characterized by the transition to electric power, and third revolution – characterized by the massive involvement of computers and data processing in industrial activities. The Industry 4.0 program marks the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution, which will be characterized by the use of cyber-physical systems in manufacturing. The initiative of starting such a program was taken by the German Government in 2011 (the so-called Industrie 4.0 project). Since then, several other EU countries have adopted similar programs: Factory of the Future (France and Italy), Catapult (UK), etc. According to the principles of the Industry 4.0 program, industrial products should be able to interact with the manufacturing equipment (machine-tools, robots, etc.) by transferring information related to different processing stages. The main consequence of this approach will be the development of an intelligent manufacturing environment having the capability of communicating and making optimal decisions in an autonomous manner. In order to achieve such an ambitious goal, EU will have to spend more than 1,300 billion EURO in the next 15 years. The major economic and political challenge consists in allowing all industrial domains to take advantage from the digital innovation in products, manufacturing processes and business models. The mains advantages and drawbacks of the Romania in the Industry 4.0 agenda are also presented.