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industryWhat the hell is 4.0? In fact, there is no standard answer.

First look at three concepts: Industry 1.0 mechanicalWith the steam engine as the symbol, the steam-powered machine is used to drive the machine to replace the manpower. Since then, the handicraft industry has been separated from agriculture and has officially evolved into industry.

Industry 2.0 electrification, marked by the widespread application of electricity, replaces steam power with electricity-driven machines. Since then, the production of parts and product assembly has been divided, and the industry has entered the era of mass production.

Industry 3.0 automationmarked by the application of PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) and PC, from then on, the machine not only took over most of the manual labor of people, but also took over part of the mental labor, and the Industrial production capacity has since surpassed the consumption capacity of human beings. Humanity has entered the era of overcapacity.

After understanding these concepts, let’s understand Industry 4.0, we have to start with the business model of the factory.

Let’s start with the business model of the factory. Factories exist for only two purposes, to produce products and then sell them. Therefore, in industrial enterprises, it is usually divided into two large departments, one is the production department and the other is the business department. The former is managed by MES (Manufacturing Execution System), and the latter is managed by ERP (Management Information System).

What is the difference between these two systems? ERP is more inclined to the management of financial information, while MES is more inclined to the control of the production process. Simply put, ERP mainly tells you how many bottles the customer needs to produce, when to place the order, and when to get the goods, while MES is mainly responsible for monitoring and management. How each step and process of producing these bottles is accomplished.

In many workshops of our factories, the communication between various production equipment, production equipment and controllers has basically been realized. In a company that is a little more powerful, the entire factory has been connected through the Manufacturing Execution System (MES), and the business units are all connected through ERP.

But ERP and MES are not actually connected! Therefore, when ERP issues a production plan instruction to MES, MES will make adjustments according to the actual situation of the workshop if something deviates from the plan (such as equipment is broken, raw materials are unqualified, etc.) during the production process. But ERP does not know! Therefore, it will continue to execute the order according to the original plan. After a long time, there will be a very large deviation between the financial system and the actual situation of the factory.

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