The System Integrator’s Role in Industry 4.0

Moving beyond the hype and buzzwords, an integrator brings knowledge of many different products and industrial sectors to help get the most value from your digital transformation.

Given that I am in charge of marketing and communications for a system integrator, it might seem trivial and obvious that I would want to write about why the manufacturing world needs system integrators.

I have been working in this sector for about a year and a half. Since my first day on the job, I’ve been bombarded with terms like Industry 4.0, super and hyper-amortization, Factory 4.0, virtual factory and more. At first, it seemed easy to deal with communications in this area: It’s a hot topic, everyone’s talking about it, it’s in fashion and—a non-trivial matter—there’s government funding for it. Someone might say: “Fantastic, the state is already marketing for you; at least half of the work is already done.”

I feel like I am living through a similar situation with Industry 4.0, albeit now in an industrial manufacturing context. Workers and job seekers face a continuous need to educate and train themselves to be competitive and to increase the value of their activities. And companies must adopt the new technologies in order to be prepared to face the inevitable changes in the market—or maybe even lead the way. This is what Industry 4.0 talks about: the digital transformation of the factory through the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality, predictive analytics, control, Big Data and much more.

We are talking, instead, about corporate reorganization—involvement at all levels of the enterprise, from production to management. We are talking about new approaches, the evolution of the factory and the way we work inside the company.

As system integrators, we cannot just surf the wave of the moment—our contribution goes far beyond current trends and funding. It is the culture of innovation, the knowledge of various cases throughout different sectors, and the awareness of reliability that make us authoritative. We are not here this year and gone the next; this is what we have always done and will continue to do.

It is good to talk about Industry 4.0; essential to find the right path. But just as was the case with the training, it is essential to take the road of value, with a project and a very specific goal.

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