For some unknown reason, some technologies are (wrongly) considered an essential part of Industry 4.0, and always mentioned with Industry 4.0 by Gurus in speeches and articles. Some favorites are Additive manufacture, Virtual reality and Robotics. They make it sound like it is Industry 4.0 only if you have these as part of your manufacturing processes. This gets quite worrying after a while, getting you thinking “Is what I am doing even worthy of being called Industry 4.0 ?”. Note that there is no such thing as an Industry 4.0 ‘standard’. There is no specified level of automation, specified manufacturing processes, etc.
Additive manufacture
Also called 3D printing. This involves building products by adding material layer by layer. Additive manufacturing starts off with nothing, and builds a part by adding material. It is done with various materials, most commonly plastics and metal. Subtractive manufacturing is what we have been doing traditionally. It starts off with raw material, and removes material to create parts. Additive manufacturing is NOT a necessary part of Industry 4.0, and Industry 4.0 implementation in your organization does not require 3D printing machines.
Robotics
Robots are NOT a necessary part of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 implementation in your organization does not require robots.
High Automation levels
You could have a whole lot of manually operated machines. All your material handling could be manual, and every single part of yours could involve manual intervention. High automation, is NOT a necessary part of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 implementation in your organization does not require this.
Virtual Reality (VR)
Virtual Reality is a 3-D, environment that is generated by a computer, which can be explored and interacted with by a person. E.g., you can learn about a machine with just a fully simulated machine and no physical machine.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Augmented Reality overlays digital information onto a physical world. E.g., you point your mobile phone camera at a machine part, the software recognizes what part it is, and gives you detailed information about the part for machine operation or maintenance.