Connected industry or Industry 4.0, digitization, cloud computing, internet of things, cybersecurity… all these are concepts that in recent years have been discussed in many conferences, in countless web portals, in specialized press etc. And yes, it is true that all these technological milestones are crucial for the evolution to the industry of the nearest present future, but so will the people, and just as relevant!
We cannot fall into the error of thinking that, in this new opportunity for growth for the industry, we only have to take into account having faster, smarter and more interconnected devices that generate millions of data, we will also have to have people prepared to adapt to change and get the most out of it. That will be one of the differentiating keys and a great opportunity for many professionals.
In the last two or three years, the management of a multitude of medium-sized companies (€ 25-1000M) have a transformation proposal towards connected industry among their action plans. If we pay attention to all the “noise” generated, as I mentioned at the beginning, it gives me the feeling that the role of workers in this new era has been left in the background. As if the really important thing was the transformation of our machines and installations and not of the people who work on them or with them!
We cannot make the mistake of thinking that it is only a technological change, rather it is a cultural evolution that will affect both machines and people.
For this reason, not only the operations director, the CTO (Chief Technology Officer) or the process engineers must drive this transformation, the HR department also has a fundamental role.
In this cultural evolution in the industry, it will be essential to have a trained human capital to function in this new environment. We will have to complement the training of active personnel and adapt them to the new skills that are needed, as well as hire new professionals already trained. The role of workers will change and the ability to make quick decisions and above all to have a global vision of all the processes that are part will take on greater importance. In a few years, we will have infinite data collected by software. These software will transform all that data (worthless by itself) into information and with that information, employees must be prepared to make decisions. All this in a much shorter time frame than is currently the case.
Fortunately, in Spain more and more universities have realized this and we already have a wide range of training programs that allow us to develop the new skills associated with industry 4.0, not only at a technological level but also at a “human” level.
This change or evolution of the industry is not a goal to be reached, but a new work model in which all departments and members of a company will play a fundamental role in achieving success. Therefore, the evolution of our company towards a 4.0 company will depend on everyone.
