IIoT and Industrie 4-0 - Common Goals for the Factory of the Future

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Are there actual differences between the Industrial Internet of Things and Industrie 4.0, and, moreover, are both approaches leading to a common realization of the smart connected factory? In trying to differentiate the two, one could perhaps characterize the IIoT as a general phenomenon involving a global proliferation of embedded sensors, data analytics and networks such as industrial Ethernet in manufacturing. Industrie 4.0, on the other hand, is something a bit more specific, and based on an actual consortium of representatives from German industry, research, industrial associations, and industrial unions which coined the term. Moreover, it could be stated that the IIoT is an industrial response to a consumer-facing trend (the generic Internet of Things), while Industrie 4.0 is more particular to industry and automation. In the final analysis, the two terms refer to very similar movements, and both IIoT and Industrie 4.0 will certainly enable the smart connected factory of the future.

Industrie 4.0 is essentially a German industry and government initiative to spur a fourth industrial revolution, which has used it to denote a potential fourth industrial revolution, following the previous ones that centered on the introduction of water/steam power, electrical powered industrialization, and IT. An Industrie 4.0 Working Group was established in 2012 to focus on initiatives such as the refinement of embedded systems (leveraging the historical success of German car manufacturers) and industrial production.  "Along with increased automation in industry, the development of intelligent monitoring and autonomous decision-making processes is particularly important in order to be able steer and optimize both companies and entire value-adding networks in almost real-time," stated an overview of Industry 4.0 from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. "The aim is to develop completely new business models and tap the considerable potential for optimization in the areas of production and logistics."

This vision, with its emphasis on real-time communications and automation, definitely has a lot of overlap with the general principles of the IIoT. Moreover, as with the IIoT, there are significant advantages to gain from using and refining the same underlying communications infrastructure – industrial Ethernet protocols like EtherNet/IP, PROFINET, SERCOS III and many others – that has been an integral component of automation communications in factories and plants for years.

Essentially, Industrie 4.0 represents a paradigm shift from centralized to de-centralized smart manufacturing. Advanced embedded technologies, that enable the cyber-physical production systems referred to earlier, enable intelligent machine-to-machine, machine to human, and machine to production system communication. This creates an IIoT that enables a fundamental shift from conventional industrial production to connected, intelligent manufacturing through smart factories, products, and services. This also creates an environment where the boundaries between the virtual and physical worlds blur as factory simulation software validates and commissions real machines and production systems communicating and functioning autonomously.  In the factory of the future, Industrie 4.0 will operate as an IIoT to redraw new value chains across factories, plants, and supply chains.

The IIoT typically embodies many of the same manufacturing use cases of Industrie 4.0 such as the further deployment of industrial networks and real-time communications enabled by smart sensors. In effect, the basic principles of the IIoT and the connective and machine intelligence environment that it spawns enables the principles of Industrie 4.0.