The path from the first to the fourth industrial revolution:
The First Industrial Revolution
The first industrial revolution took place between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It took place in the nineteenth century. During this time, manufacturing evolved from manual labor performed by humans and supported by work animals to an optimized form of labor performed by humans through the use of water- and steam-powered machines and other types of machine tools. Industrialized manufacturing of textiles began with the shift of production from households to factories. Steam power and textile machinery played an important role during this period.
In factories, machine production equipment was able to produce more goods faster than had previously been possible with manual labor. The acceleration of industrialization through the construction of railroads, the rapid adaptation of innovations in steel production, the adoption of modern techniques in cotton processing is noteworthy.
Through rapid growth, the leading industries contributed significantly to the structural transformation from agriculture to industry and to the growth of national income.
The Revolution had a major impact on citizens and led to changes in the way they lived and worked, such as the advent of factories, urbanization, humanitarian problems, and improvements in transportation.
As an event, the Industrial Revolution had both positive and negative effects. on society. The Industrial Revolution led to a greatly accelerated development of technology, productivity, and the sciences, which, accompanied by a sharp increase in population, was accompanied by a novel exacerbation of social ills.
I will discuss this in detail later in the book when we talk about the influences on the national economy and society.
The path from the first to the fourth industrial revolution:
The Second Industrial Revolution
At the beginning of the 20th century, the world entered a second industrial revolution with the introduction of steel and the use of electricity in factories. The use of electricity allowed manufacturers to increase efficiency and make machines more mobile. This phase introduced concepts of mass production such as the assembly line to increase productivity.
Advances in manufacturing and production technology enabled the proliferation of technological systems such as telegraph and rail networks, gas and water supplies, and sewage systems.
The milestone of Industry 2.0 was the introduction of the assembly line - first used in automobile production by Henry Ford in 1913.
Industry 2.0 is characterized by the subdivision of production into individual, self-contained work steps. These sub-steps were carried out by workers who were specialized exclusively in this activity - series production was born.
The third industrial revolution
Beginning in the late 1970s, a third industrial revolution began to emerge as manufacturers used more electronics and computer technology in their factories. This period saw a shift from analog and mechanical technology to digital technology and automation software. The third industrial revolution brought semiconductors, mainframe computers, personal computers and the Internet.
These new technologies made space expeditions, biotechnology, and robotic manufacturing possible and feasible.
The rapid decline in transaction costs brought about by the third industrial revolution led to the democratization of information, energy, and production. Characteristic of Industry 3.0 is a successive automation of work steps. Human labor is increasingly being replaced by machines in series production.
The fourth industrial revolution and historical classification of the IoT
The central feature of progressive digitization in industrial production is the horizontal and vertical networking of production and utilization processes across company boundaries. Instead of a central planning control system, every component in a smart
factory now has a product memory.
This enables a high degree of flexibility through the dynamic
decentralized optimization of individual production and utilization processes. Overall, companies can thus respond better to market changes and customer wishes.
Customer wishes.
The fourth industrial revolution stands for disruptive technologies and trends such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI).
Robotics
Robotics is a discipline that deals with the development of robots. Mechanical design, closed-loop control and electronic control play a major role.
Industrial robots are mostly used in environments that are too dangerous or unreasonable for humans. Today, modern robots perform repetitive assembly line tasks faster and more accurately than humans and can replace them in an increasing number of areas.
Household robots can vacuum, mop the floor or mow the lawn. Top models like those from IRobot are network and IoT capable, vacuuming up dust as well as orientation data.
Research robots explore distant planets or disaster zones, among other things. Mars Exploration Rovers act as robotic geologists while on the surface of Mars.
All robots will be connected to the Internet of Things and controlled or maintained.
The Internet of Things and robotics are merging to form the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT). The IoRT is a concept where smart networked devices monitor events around them, combine their sensor data to use local and distributed artificial intelligence. This allows the system to decide on courses of action, and then behave in a way that allows them to manipulate or control objects in the physical world.
