Who will lead the “Fourth Industrial Revolution?”

This is an excerpt of the original article. It was written for the July-August 2017 edition of Supply Chain Management Review. The full article is available to current subscribers.

July-August 2017

A few years ago, a Harvard Business Review cover posed the question: What’s the secret to winning in the global economy? The answer: Talent.

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Digital supply chains, smart factories, Industry 4.0: However you describe the change upon us, the key point is just that—a change is upon us. An exponential change, at that. Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, refers to the change as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” To understand its implications, it is helpful to review the three prior revolutions. The First Industrial Revolution, which began around 1760, refers to a transition from manual to mechanized work, particularly though water and steam power. The Second Industrial Revolution, beginning in the later third of the 19th century, saw the advent of mass production, the growth of the steel and oil industries and electrification. Almost 100 years later, the 1950s saw the beginnings of the Third Industrial Revolution with the transition from analog to digital technologies.

In the 2010s we find ourselves in the midst of a Fourth Industrial Revolution. In it we see not only advances in science and biotechnology but also the cyber-physical systems of smart factories and the end-to-end value chains that encompass everything from raw-material extraction to conversion to distribution to use and reintegration. And whereas prior revolutions tended to be inter-generational, allowing successive generations to absorb and adapt to the changes, the pace of the Fourth Industrial Revolution will be intra-generational, with compelling new opportunities for sustainable prosperity.

But, there are challenges. Technology breakthroughs in areas such as mobile connectivity, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, robotics, 3D printing, biotechnology, genetic engineering, nanotechnology and advanced materials, to name a few, are radically transforming global production systems, from the individual worker on the factory floor to the globally distributed networks of suppliers and manufacturers that characterize today’s typical supply chain.

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