For the European Commission it is already time to outline the immediate future: Industry 5.0

For the first time, technology will be at the service of the Company, this is the extreme synthesis of the fifth industrial revolution that awaits us.

Between the end of 2010 and the first months of 2011, in some European countries and in particular in Germany, the term “Industry 4.0” was being used for the first time; 10 years later, this concept is now reaching the peak of maturity while its technological development is still in constant evolution.

To the above, the contingencies of the last period have highlighted the need to accelerate the digital transition and, consequently, to review some methodologies: this has led to the hypothesis of the “new” Industry 5.0.

The fifth industrial revolution is emerging on the horizon characterized as the logical evolution of all those processes started with Industry 4.0.

All member states of the European Union are working to encourage the digitization process through initiatives that provide for tax breaks; if, until recently, these concerned more strictly the transformation of productive assets, today they extend to software in a more broad way, as happened in Italy with the transition to the National Transition Plan 4.0.

The crisis that arose from the recent pandemic highlighted the need to rethink many of the working methods, underlined the vulnerability of the industry and the need for flexibility to cope with it.

The need for Industry 5.0

This general framework has allowed the European Commission to think about new principles for a fifth industrial revolution: this time, however, it is not the new technological opportunities that push this need, but the need to create a 5.0 Society where “man and machine” are central elements.

Reading between the leading technological categories for Industry 5.0 identified by the European Union, one finds in fact a perfect continuity with what the now well-known Industry 4.0 has been promoting for a decade: individualized interaction between man and machine, inspiring technologies biological, digital twins and systems simulation, data flow and analysis platforms, artificial intelligence and energy efficiency.

The different objective of the new industrial revolution, compared to what we propose today, is to push these technologies not only within the industry for the search for better production and profit conditions, but also and above all within the daily life of all European citizens for an improvement of living conditions.

The principles of Industry 5.0 identified by the European Commission are mainly three:

Human-centrality: aims to place the human being at the center, at the heart of the production process. Machines and artificial intelligence are not a cold replacement for labor, but opportunities for transformation and economic and professional growth: the question is “what can technology do for us?” and again: the speed with which technologies develop and replace themselves obliges us to see the worker as an investment, whose training must follow this trend hand in hand. The workplace is defined as a “safe and inclusive” space, once again underlining the aim of technological evolution, the psycho-physical well-being of the worker.

Sustainability: to which we want to aspire can be summarized with the phrase “best with less”: Greater use of renewable sources, reuse of energy and less waste to ensure that the energy needs of today’s generations do not cannibalize resources tomorrow.

The ultimate goals are: to create sufficiently strategic value chains and adaptable production capacities and flexible business processes, especially in sectors serving basic human needs such as health and safety.

Resilience: refers to the need to develop a higher level of robustness than the current industrial contexts of which the world, with the vicissitudes of recent years, has definitely had proof.

Industry 5.0 wants to recognize the power of industry to achieve social goals beyond jobs and growth to become a resilient provider of prosperity, ensuring that production respects the boundaries of our planet by putting the welfare of the industrial worker at the heart of the production process.

For us at EVi it is a great pleasure to find that our ethical and professional values ​​are “very close” to what the near future will have to be able to best interpret. This new scenario will be a stimulus and incentive for us so that our solutions contribute and best interpret the new reality.

To find out more about the principles of Industry 5.0 and to learn more about the development sectors for the European Commission to focus on to make this change real, please refer to the dedicated page on the official portal (https://ec.europa. eu/info/research-and-innovation/research-area/industrial-research-and-innovation/industry-50_en), where the original publication can be downloaded.