AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
IMPLEMENTATION OF INDUSTRY 4.0 IN ENGINEERING COMPANIES
a
KAREL KUBA,
b
FRANTIŠEK MILICHOVSKÝ
Pan-European University, Faculty of Economics and
Entrepreneurship, Tematínska 10,
851 05 Bratislava, Slovakia
Brno University of Technology, Faculty of Business and
Management, Department of management, Kolejní 2906/4,
612 00 Brno, Czech Republic
email:
a
karel.kuba@dieffenbacher.cz,
b
milichovsky@fbm.vutbr.cz
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to verify dependence between potential threat of
industry 4.0 and present skills and knowledge of workers in engineering companies.
There were defined four hypotheses, focused on connection between knowledge of
industry 4.0 concept and potential threats of job loss from different points of view. To
verify these hypotheses there was used questionnaire survey, distributed in
engineering companies in Czech Republic, Germany and Canada. Gained data was put
under statistical evaluation by Pearson’s chi-square test of independence and
correspondence analysis for displaying connection between knowledge of industry 4
and country of company.
Keywords: Industry 4.0, globalization, industrialization, unemployment, circular
economy
1 Introduction
In present time there are increasing interest about industry
performance, which provide both of higher productivity of staff
and corporate prosperity. Due the globalization there is
requirement for industrialization and leaving companies with
little difficult technologies to developing countries. Therefore,
there is expecting coming of new technologies leading to
structural in employment. According to Peschner and Fotakis
(2013) in European Union would not ensure target employment
rate till 2022. Specific situation would be in Czech Republic,
which reach problem of enough potential workers in 2018, in
Hungary and Slovak Republic in 2020 (Pauhofová, Stehlíková,
2017). This situation and reasons enable creation of initiative for
industry 4.0 in Germany. This initiative, is required by market
economy, because by radical benefit of industrial revolution can
move revolution sense, supporting potential increasing of
production effectiveness.
By industrial revolution term is usually considered back-view to
evolution of industrial environment and manufacturing.
Therefore, industry 4.0 is rated as running process. Suggestion of
new industry 4.0 platform leads to action plan, called as High
strategy 2020. This platform provides cooperation across wide
range of organizations, leading to development of industry 4.0
concept on the way of building strong competitiveness in
participant countries (Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu, 2016).
The industry 4.0 concept is considered as kind of set of
activities, which are focused on corporate investments, applied
science and standardization of production. It is based on
integrated cyber security of digitalization processes. There are
defined changes in social field because of the implementation of
industry 4.0 and digitalization. Therefore, there are expected new
trends of employing, which corroborates actual industrial
revolution. According to technology and social changes there are
expected creation of new job position and at the same time
abolishment of actual positions (Rojko, 2017).
2 Theoretical background
Globalization of corporate environment support development of
technics and technologies around all industry fields. Individual
industry revolutions developing of technologies and technics for
industrial production. Actual situation in industrial production
reflects new era of production approach. Present concept of
production – industry 4.0 – is based on high digitalization of
employment. According to Cline (2017), over one third of
producers are going to implement elements of digitalization into
their production. In industrial development there was several
steps, which lead to present situation (see Picture 1). First
industry revolution changed manufacturing practices by
employing machineries (at the end of 18
th
century). In industry
2.0 there was applied mass production and assembling lines
instead of manual fabrication with machinery support (at the end
of 19
th
century). Third step in industry development (industry
3.0) was started in 1970s due lean philosophy with support of
cyber parts (e.g. computers, networks, internet), what prepare
situation for outsourcing of production and digital
transformation. During all industrial steps there were required
skills, abilities and experiences of workers (depended on the
workers’ alignment.
Picture 1 Developing of industry revolutions
Source: adapted according Cline, 2017
Industry 4.0 helps to create smart factory vision as reaction to
market requirements. The substance of smart factory is high
integrated, automatized and continuously optimized working
environment in connection to production devices into cybernetic-
physical systems. Investments into development and
implementation of innovative solutions would be in difficult
projects, which help to stabilize long-term competitiveness of
Czech industry. Producers of equipment, software and industrial
companies need specific platform, which provide development,
function verification and compatibility of new solutions in semi-
industrials conditions and in interaction within actual
technologies (Fettig et al., 2018; Ematinger, 2017; Koren,
Shpitalni, 2010; Nayak, Dürr, Rothermel, 2015).
From general point of view, industry 4.0 includes combination
of various technologies such additive production, cutting, robotic
manipulation, automated stocks, smart conveyor systems and
others. Due both of flexible connections of universal production
devices and sophisticated driving systems there is possible to use
same equipment in different operations, which are planned in
optimal ways according to specific needs. All sophisticated
systems and advanced software include possibility for new
product digitalization, their simulation and virtual establishing of
new production line on the way of both product’s and production
process optimization before beginning of production. By this
whole process there is likely to reduce time for production and
its costs before launching product. As kind of support there is
used cloud-stores for data collection from whole production to
make an analyse of these data and improve individual areas such
quality management or precaution of equipment, which are
typically considered as key part of industry 4.0 for modern and
future production (Český institut informatiky, robotiky a
kybernetiky, 2018).
The purpose of the industry 4.0 was developed from german
initiative to create cooperation between academics and
companies in production area as reply for market requirements in
context of performance claims (Bundesministerium für
Wirtschaft und Energie, 2017). In Czech national initiative,
prepared by
Ministerstvo průmyslu a obchodu České Republiky.
(2015) there is described philosophy of industry 4.0 reflects
various concepts, which are similar to each other, e.g. Industrie
du future (France), Fabrica Intelligente (Italy), Industrial Internet
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