The Manufacture Industry is preparing its own big step toward the digital economy. This evolution is named after the Web 4.0, and so imaginatively Industry 4.0. Where some see the change following the same evolutionary path as the web, we should not make the mistake to think the process as straightforward as they propose. Some aspects are already affecting the global market but it is only the begining of a long transformation process of the production industry.

In what extent is Indutry 4.0 following Web 4.0 evolution ?

disruptive changes are already affecting societal, economical and technical aspects of the manufacturing. For example, jobs are beginning to shift from offshoring back to nearshoring.

Some predominent use cases of industry 4.0:

1. Automating and integrating the supply chain
2. Product lifecycle track & trace
3. Sharing industrial IoT intelligence

All those Use cases have two challenges:

1. the increasing gap between computer literate and illiterate which lead to social inequality
2. securing assets like IP, money, resources, people profiles, contracts and so on

To tackle the challenge of security, we think that a powerful technology like blockchains would allow to secure assets and lastly transform an internet of information to an internet of value. Don Tapscott from the Blockchain Research Institute gives five use cases:

1. Protecting rights through immutable records (land title in blockchain)
2. Creating a true sharing economy (ethereum project, smart contracts)
3. Ending the remittances rip-off (abra)
4. Enabling citizen to own and monetize their data & protect privacy (Blockchain HELIX)
5. Ensuring compensation for the creator of value (music see imogen heap, mycelia)

to be continued ...