Month: November 2016

Terrestrial Wi-Fi and cellular networks support just a portion of the grid that will be required to allow fully autonomous vehicles to navigate city streets and highways. Satellites will play an equally important role in delivering secure software updates and other critical information, such as mapping data, needed for the connected car.

Connected and autonomous vehicles are going to forever change the way we move people and products.  The connected environment will also change the way auto manufacturers address vehicle operational improvements, which are increasingly software-driven.  The savings available from cutting even a single recall visit over the lifespan of a vehicle provide a compelling argument for enabling connectivity to vehicles.

Cars, trucks and buses that don’t need drivers offer the promise of saving time and money, getting commuters and goods to their destinations faster and more easily, and aiding mobility for disabled and older people. Such intelligent transport systems and self-driving vehicles are fast moving towards widespread commercialization, with higher levels of automation on the road expected by 2020. Many auto manufacturers and high-technology companies are engaged in experimental testing of autonomous vehicles. One Colorado, U.S.- based company just announced that it has used self-driving technology to move a truckload of cargo 125 miles from one city to another. And citizens of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, regularly see driver-less cars on their streets, not far from a testing headquarters for another major driverless car innovator.

Both passenger safety and network security are paramount for connected and autonomous automobiles. Government regulators will demand failsafe and ubiquitous communication that is more than tamper-resistant because human lives depend on the reliability and security of networks communicating with autonomous vehicles. Satellites are indispensable to providing secure, resilient and ubiquitous wireless connectivity to complement terrestrial communication networks, with notable differences in terms of cyber considerations.

Automotive digital technology historically has been focused on optimizing the internal functions of automotive systems and, more recently, on the use of sensor technologies that monitor and identify objects near vehicles. Attention has now shifted towards developing communication technologies that integrate cars with smart devices via the Internet.

 

 

Satellite communications will play an important role in the connectivity and autonomy of intelligent cars with software updates and machine-to-machine (M2M) communications. A key challenge is to create a totally reliable and ubiquitous communication system that is both highly secure and economically viable. At Intelsat, we are closely involved in these initiatives to ensure that intelligent vehicles make the best use of what satellite technology has to offer.

An autonomous vehicle requires two different types of external signal connections. Functions of the car such as steering or braking that need information about other vehicles along a route must rely on terrestrial networks with virtually no signal latency due to the time-sensitive nature of these interactions. Vehicles must react instantly to the proximity of other moving vehicles or stationary objects.

Other vehicle functions that need less time-sensitive information can rely on satellites as a medium of communications due to the inherent attributes of satellite technology. For example, satellites can multicast updates to cars concerning road conditions ahead, local imaging of city streets and mapping of selected routes. Such information is necessary to enable the intelligent cars to “make decisions” autonomously as they move from place to place. These modern and intelligent cars need to have a massive repository of know-how built in them to ensure that they can be autonomous, and this know-how must be continually updated. Satellites are the most reliable, efficient and least expensive means of downloading these massive amounts of data into every car and truck on the highway.

In addition, auto manufacturers can use the broadcast capabilities of satellites to update connected car operating software, thereby avoiding costly recalls and updating the software one car at a time at dealerships. Manufacturers will play an important role in the adoption of connected car technology because they will be building flat-panel satellite antennas into the car body when it is on the assembly line.

The key advantages of using satellites to support the connected car include:

• Global reach — With a single geostationary satellite it is possible to provide communications downlinks over wide areas, such as entire countries or continents, including in rural areas with no terrestrial connections.
• Instant service rollout — Combined with complementary ground networks, satellites ensure that vehicles are connected everywhere. Such coverage is fundamental to vehicle safety because every autonomous vehicle on the highway will be updated at the same time.
• Globally harmonized spectrum — By and large, satellite spectrum allocations are globally harmonized. This greatly simplifies the design and implementation of hardware used in cars. More importantly, it allows the cars to be seamlessly and globally interoperable, reducing costs and complexity for the manufacturer.

Using satellites for connected and autonomous vehicles supports a number of the United Nations’ 2030 Global Goals that include cutting in half the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2020 and providing access by 2030 to safe, affordable, accessible and sustainable transport systems for all.

Satellites will play a vital role as the world’s mobility patterns change from driver-operated to autonomous vehicles. Intelsat will continue to collaborate with its partners to develop the necessary technologies and applications for future intelligent transport systems – and we’re looking forward to debating this in full in the Forum session The connected car: freeway to the future or trouble on the road? at ITU Telecom World 2016 in the coming days.

Figure 1: Autonomous cars send and receive positioning data using reliable satellite communications

Building an Inclusive ICT Innovation Ecosystem: A Success Story from Belarus Hi-Tech Park

Established 10 years ago as a start-up initiative, Belarus Hi-Tech Park (HTP) has provided software and IT services production growth at 30-40% annually and is expected to reach $1b this year. 10 years ago, we could not have imagined such results since the whole country exported software worth about $14m.

HTP has turned out to be one of the leading innovative IT clusters in Europe, with 164 resident companies and over 25,000 software engineers employed there. More than 3,000 new jobs are created in HTP companies annually.

Belarus has become a prominent player on the international IT market, with the professionalism and expertise of Belarusian software engineers being recognized globally. Thus, Gartner names Belarus among the Top 10 most attractive locations for service delivery centers in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East and Africa).

HTP companies provide IT services on the B2B market to customers from 61 countries. EPAM, IBA Group, Itransition, Intetics, Exadel, ScienceSoft, System Technologies, and many other HTP residents are well-known internationally. Five out of ten of the world’s largest companies (according to Forbes Lists) are among HTP customers. Over 900 million people in more than 190 countries use applications developed in HTP.

Due to the unique innovation ecosystem created in HTP, a number of IT projects have already gained worldwide success: World of Tanks, Viber, Apalon, maps.me, MSQRD.

We are witnessing the emergence of a new economy – the information economy, with the individual at its core. So our task is to develop an ecosystem encouraging smart, talented people to work on their ideas in Belarus, and think globally when implementing them.

The major pillar of the HTP innovation ecosystem is a comprehensive cooperation between the IT industry and the country’s education system based on three models.

The Stanford model appeared to be the most favorable to bridge the gap between academic and real life and became the earliest we adopted. HTP companies have opened about 80 joint research labs in Belarusian universities as a channel for practical knowledge transfer. Initially, these labs were focused exclusively on software engineering; now they also teach business analytics, computer science, etc.

Over 30 university research departments of computer science and related subjects operate within HTP companies to bring together educational process and production, improve the quality of training, and enable students to gain their first professional experience.

Another example we followed is the John Bryce model. To solve a challenge Israel faced when about a million former Soviet Union immigrants, mostly engineers, failed to find jobs, they invited Motorola, HP and some other global high-tech corporations to open R&D centers, and created a special educational center to re-train adults in the hi-tech field. That gave an unprecedented boost to the Israeli IT industry.

In 2010, the Educational Center of the Hi-Tech Park was established with the participation of HTP residents to provide re-education for adults with a technical background. Over 5,000 people were retrained there. Today, the HTP Educational Center also works with students and children. For its efforts in promoting and fostering information society development, HTP Educational Center was highly appreciated by the WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) expert group and honoured as a Champion of WSIS Prize 2016 during the WSIS Forum in Geneva.

One more model was prompted by our own experience. As HTP companies gained expertise in different areas, sometimes highly specialized, they started to establish their own competence centers. These centers allow companies’ employees to access best international and Belarusian practices and improve their skills in solving unusual and complex tasks. The competence centers also provide free courses to re-train adults who successfully pass special entrance tests (in mathematical logic, English, etc.).

Today, we are witnessing a boom in the start-up movement worldwide: in the USA, China, India, Brazil, and in European countries. Young people in Belarus are also eager to develop their own projects as they are witnessing an increasing number of global success stories in Belarus.

The HTP business incubator serves to encourage entrepreneurship and sustain the spirit of innovation. This is a place where innovators can meet engineers, and ideas for new business ventures can be born. Start-up companies developing their own products can get assistance and mentorship there.

Knowledge is important but motivation and inspiration mean even more. So we invite developers and founders of successful Belarusian projects to share their experience with startups and drive them.

Since our local market is small, we do not support projects intended for Belarus only. Instead, we encourage entrepreneurs to consider international prospects when working on their projects, and attract investments from abroad. If you can get funding in Singapore, Tokyo, Silicon Valley, or London, you are on the right road and develop a truly global product.

I look forward to sharing our experiences and learning from other participants in the B2G Dialogue “Top-down vs Bottom-up Innovation: Fostering Future Tech Entrepreneurship” at ITU Telecom World 2016 in the coming days.

According to the new ITU Broadband Commission report, “State of Broadband 2016,” billions of people are still not connected to the internet and a half a billion homes that are connected do not have adequate broadband.  Many of these people live in developing countries in high cost areas that are currently unprofitable to serve.

To solve this problem, policymakers should consider imposing an upfront universal service obligation, or USO, in their countries’ upcoming 700 MHz auctions. Bidders will reflect the USO’s added costs of deployment in their proposed bids.  In this way, governments will efficiently fund broadband deployment costs to high cost areas and private companies will determine how best to meet the deployment obligation the regulator defines.

But even if affordable broadband is available, people need the skills to use digital tools to navigate the web.  Digital literacy programs and the use of ICT and broadband in schools can help close the adoption gap.

The ITU Broadband Commission Demand Creation Report provides several examples of public private partnerships that have made a difference. For example, a program implemented by the government of Senegal and the World Bank enables many university students to obtain computers and Costa Rica’s “connected homes program” benefits vulnerable socioeconomic groups via subsidies for computers and internet access.

Also helpful is the “Smart Africa” initiative, a regional program that brought together several heads of African countries, to improve adoption of ICT and broadband across Africa.

However, despite these efforts, more can be done. The value is clear: deploying more broadband and getting millions more people online will generate myriad social and economic benefits.

I look forward to discussing how we can best make further progress on broadband deployment globally – both on supply and demand sides – in the “Reaching another billion: Understanding what works to stimulate ICT adoption” session in the Forum at ITU Telecom World 2016 in the coming days.

As the Director of The Open Group Trusted Technology Forum I am thrilled to be participating at ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand.  In particular, I will be on a panel of subject matter experts to discuss the challenge of securing business enterprises and critical infrastructures and the potential steps that can be taken now to address these challenges – steps that can start us down the path of, as the ITU Telecom conference theme notes, “Better Sooner”.

This session: “No Trade Without Trust” to be held on Wednesday, November 16 from 16:45 PM – 18:00 PM will address ICT trust, innovation and trade.

In this blog, I provide some insight into these global challenges – from my perspective. There will be additional perspectives from the panelists and the attendees that will foster further discussion in this relevant session!

Information and communication technologies (ICT) and their supply chains depend upon complex and interrelated networks of suppliers across a wide range of global partners. Suppliers deliver hardware and software components to Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) or Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) who build products from the components, and in turn deliver products to customers directly or through a value-add reseller (who may add even more components) or to system integrators who integrate them with products from multiple providers at a customer site. This complexity leaves ample opportunity for malicious components with vulnerabilities that can potentially be exploited.

As a result, organizations now need assurances that they are buying from trusted technology providers who follow best practices every step of the way. This means that they not only follow secure development and engineering practices in-house while developing their own software and hardware pieces, but also that they are following best practices to secure their supply chains by requiring third parties who supply their components to also follow best practices for security. Modern cyber criminals continuously and exhaustively seek to identify any sort of vulnerability that can be exploited for malicious gain and the supply chain is no different.

One perspective I will bring to the discussion is the importance of assuring product integrity and the security of ICT global supply chains as a first line of defense to reduce the possibility that unauthorized functionality can be introduced into products and to mitigate vulnerabilities that can lead to maliciously tainted and counterfeit products. This first line of defense must not be ignored when considering how to prevent damage to critical infrastructure and the horrific consequences that can ensue.

The second perspective I will underscore is that many buyers do not know what to ask of, or require from, their providers to ensure they are building and delivering secure ICT.  They need guidance on what that dialogue looks like, what questions buyers need to ask of their suppliers and what recommendations or demands they need to make in their acquisitions.

Finally, I will bring the perspective that building secure ICT products and securing global supply chains is both a technical and a global geo-political issue. And that addressing the technical perspective in a vendor-neutral and country-neutral manner can have a positive effect on diminishing the geo-political issues.

The technical perspective is driven by the simple fact that we are living in a global economy; most everything has a global supply chain – virtually nothing is built from just one company or in just one country.  In order for products to have integrity and their supply chains to be secure, all constituents in the development of technology and the supply chain must follow best practices for security – both in-house and in their supply chains.

The related, but separate, geo-political perspective, driven by a desire to protect against malicious attackers and a lack of trust of/from nation-states, is pushing many countries to consider approaches that are disconcerting, to put it mildly. Unfortunately, because every country is extremely concerned (as they should be) about securing their critical infrastructures and their underlying supply chains, we are beginning to see attempts to address those concerns through local solutions (i.e., country-specific and disparate requirements that increase the cost burden on suppliers and can set up barriers to trade in the name of security).

In order to prevent that negative effect on trust and trade, it is essential that we advocate for common international approaches, which all countries can adopt, with the same risk-informed criteria for all providers, regardless of locale – thus raising all boats based on the tide of consistent international guidelines and global standards.

This is not to say that the risk for every environment or application for ICT is the same — the requirements for acquisition must also be based on risk analysis – but the more we can utilize international guidelines and standards to create a base level of solid security, the safer we all will be.

Of particular relevance are a few tools that are available now to help us achieve “Better, Sooner”, such as The EastWest Institute Buyers Guide Purchasing Secure ICT Products and Services: A Buyers Guide; The Open Trusted Technology Provider Standard – Mitigating Maliciously Tainted and Counterfeit Products (O-TTPS), approved by ISO as ISO/IEC 20243:2015; or the O-TTPS Certification/Accreditation Program, which is open to all ICT providers including ODMs, OEMs, component suppliers, and value-add resellers..

Again, these are only some of my perspectives – l can’t wait to hear other relevant perspectives from the panelists and the attendees at the “No trade without trust” session on Wednesday, November 16, 2016, 16:45 PM – 18:00 PM.

Artificial intelligence announcements are happening daily and a catalyst for hyper time compression of innovation, driving extreme convergence of multiple domains, producing exponential acceleration automation and universal connectivity.

To illustrate there are these proof points:

• There is a prediction that the next AI breakthrough through a Master AI Algorithm would produce a company worth 10 Microsofts or more than 4 trillion dollars in market capitalization.
• From mobile and cloud first, we now have AI first as the current enterprise strategy.
• China has a startup investment fund of $337B, an amount greater than the GDP of over 80% of countries with a key focus on robotics and AI.
• A Hong Kong VC fund, Deep Knowledge Ventures, assigning an AI to its board for decision making.
• Baidu, China’s dominant search company, announcing an AI-based StockMaster App that analyses news, markets predicting sectors, stocks or markets changes.
• Telefonica and BigML using AI to select start-ups for funding.
• Accelerating this year, we see growing use of AI-based robo advisors in wealth management and the proliferation of intelligence agents and chat bots. Robo-advisors removing the need for brokers, generating higher returns with little cost/lower fees, reducing minimums, and growing alignment/anticipation with consumer needs/wants/behaviors.
• There is AI’s increasing implementation in consumer financial and healthcare apps pre-emptively guiding our daily financial and health lifestyle choices.
• McKinsey indicating that 58 per cent of US jobs can be automated with AI-based natural language processing working at average human levels.
• The financial services roundtable or FSR, a trade organization consisting of the 100 top CEOs in financial services, who manage more assets at 91.7 trillion USD than the annual global economy, is holding their Fintech Ideas Festival in January 2017 where AI is a major theme and its implications to financial inclusion and the future workforce.

How about predicting major global changes which impact the Sustainable Development Goals?

There is NELL, the Never-Ending Language Learner which is consuming the web with more than 50 million items learned.

Ultimately, this becomes an uber prediction tool much like Bing Predicts from Microsoft and Google prediction technology and with machine learning tools easily usable for supporting the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

When I keynoted on Megatrends in Korea, another speaker hosted by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning talked about a hybrid delphi system Korea is using to predict and then act upon future trends with over 80 per cent accuracy. It’s a combination of human/machine collaboration and a catalyst where they are trying to change to an algorithm based economy from component manufacturing and with over 4.5 per cent of their GDP going to R&D, the highest in the world.

What of the future?

The impact of AI is so profound and so widespread that Bill Gates in June provided a recommended must-read of The Master Algorithm by Pedro Domingos. Pedro’s book describes the five tribes of machine learning as:

• Symbolists–Fill in gaps in existing knowledge
• Connectionists–Emulate the brain; this is Deep Learning
• Evolutionists–Simulate evolution
• Bayesians–Systematically reduce uncertainty
• Analogizers–Notice similarities between old and new

This year, I keynoted at ICSE, the world’s largest software engineering conference funded by the National Science Foundation, the research arms of the major technology companies and the four top science organizations in software engineering. Earlier from Pedro, I received his five top AI megatrends which I outlined at ICSE. I am reproducing them here due to their impact on SDGs and due to the pronounced impact on the international audience of top researchers:

1.The transition from computers that are programmed by us to computers that learn on their own. This is enabled by big data, and in turn enables the personalization of everything, from medicine to shopping, and the increasing automation of every function in an organization.

2.The automation of scientific discovery. Increasingly, each step of the scientific method, from gathering data to formulating hypotheses, is carried out by computers. This enables, for example, new drugs to be discovered at a much faster rate than before.

3.The replacement of white-collar workers by machines, not just blue-collar ones. Routine intellectual work can increasingly be done by AI; what’s hard to replace is physical dexterity, common sense, and integrative intelligence.

4.The transition from deterministic to probabilistic computing. From hardware to software, rigidly deterministic computations are giving way to probabilistic ones, enabling faster, cheaper, lower-power, larger-scale, more ubiquitous, more flexible, data-driven information systems.

5.The rise of evidence-based X, where X includes medicine, policy-making, development aid, and ultimately all important societal decisions. Instead of guesswork and mixed results, we have controlled trials that quickly weed out what doesn’t work from what does.

The future will see large parts of our lives influenced by AI of Everything (AoE)–the global AI mesh spawning a Digital Quake driving the Knowledge Synthesis of Everything (KSE), an inflection point for humankind and the SDGs.

ITU has responded with plans to hold a series of talks on AI that I will have the privilege of moderating at ITU Telecom World 2016 and the ITU Kaleidoscope academic conference in Bangkok, Thailand, this November.

ITU has also created a new LinkedIn group for debate on cutting-edge AI technologies and related ICT applications and services, with the aim of promoting discussion on the future course of AI innovation and its implications for technical standardization and governance. I encourage you to join the discussion to share your views on how you would like to see the international community approaching the biggest questions surrounding the future of AI and, by extension, the future of humanity.

 

In today’s world, everyone talks about how to bridge the digital divide and connect the unconnected to vital ICT resources. The objective, especially in the international community, is to connect people to the adequate infrastructure to ensure that they have access to important services. However, gaining access to infrastructure is not enough. People also need to be taught how to access infrastructure and use these services. Capacity building and training programs are key to empowering people to harness the benefits that ICTs can offer.

At ITSO, our Capacity Building Initiative, which is implemented through partnerships with other international organizations like the ITU, is structured to do just that. In addition to teaching people how to best use important resources such as communications satellites, we also ensure that our member states are equipped with information about the technical and regulatory aspects of satellite communications.

The ITSO Executive Organ has developed a training programme for three separate courses on satellite communications:  firstly, a combined technical and regulatory course; secondly, one intended for policy makers and regulators; and, thirdly, a course for earth station operators and engineers.  This programme can also be carried out in cooperation or back-to-back with other events through short duration events like seminars or workshops. ITSO has also been arranging tailored courses that respond to specific concerns from Member States. Over the implementation period 2010 to 2016, a total of approximately 1500 participants have been trained at the various locations in English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese.

In addition to this training programme, ITSO has also collaborated with American University’s Washington College of Law (AUWCL) to create a Program on International Communications Regulation and Policy, headed by ITSO’s Director of Legal Affairs and AUWCL adjunct professor Renata Brazil David. The programme includes an online course on “Basic Principles of International Communications Regulation and Policy”; a summer course on “International Communications Law: A Comparative Perspective”; and a semester course on “International Communications Regulation and Policy”.

Programs like ITSO’s Capacity Building Initiative are an important reminder that bridging the digital divide does not just mean giving people access to infrastructure, but also training them to use these resources to get the services they need.

And the emphasis on regulation and policy in communications underlines the importance of getting the regulatory environment right for the digital economy to flourish worldwide.  The ICT sector will be crucial to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)  – but success will require greater collaboration between the ICT sector and other vertical sectors, in particular in the field of regulation. I look forward to exploring these themes and more in the session on “Collaborative Regulation: the key to smart infrastructure in the digital economy” at ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok later this month.

Imagine a factory floor with no operators in sight, machines receiving orders, automated guided vehicles (AGVs) moving products from one machine to the next, machines performing self-diagnosis and predicting failures and finally delivering a unique, customized product based on the customer’s specifications.  This is the future of manufacturing!

The world of manufacturing is making a quantum leap with robots, self-organizing production, augmented reality and 3D printing. At the heart of this change is data – data from all these machines to drive outcomes – mass customization, predictive maintenance, products-to-services.

In smart factories where processes are fully digitized and connected, manufacturers can build and deliver orders more quickly. Customers are also able to personalize their purchases from a manufacturer with smart factory capabilities. This type of connected manufacturer, often referred to as Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution, is underway – and will be central to the debate at the plenary Forum session “The digital economy: driving industry 4.0” at ITU Telecom World 2016 in Bangkok this November.

The Connected Smart Factory

Audi, Harley Davidson, and Siemens are among the smart factory leaders that are changing the business of manufacturing. A smart factory is defined by its level of connectedness.

Five levels of Connectedness

The first level is intra-company vertical integration where a company’s business systems connect to the shop floor systems. A large number of automobile makers have been producing cars with this level of connectedness for years. Instead of having separated systems for manufacturing planning, execution, tracking, and tracing, these processes are connected and integrated with corporate business systems to improve key metrics such as customer delivery, quality and costs.

The second level is machine-to-machine connectedness where intelligent machines self-diagnose and self-correct. In these smart factories, machines have built-in sensors or RFID chips that allow them to ‘talk’ to each other and adjust workflows.

eCommerce integration, or direct integration of online configurations, is the third level of connectedness. This type of smart factory caters to the consumer, providing personalized, highly configurable products that are managed from order entry to the shop floor.

The fourth level of connectedness is manufacturing collaboration, which supports collaboration with suppliers, contract manufacturing, design partners, OEMs and customers. Design partners can work on prototypes and test designs with real time integration to shop floor systems. With the advent of 3D printing, this gives design partners the ability to do rapid prototyping.

The final level of connectedness is when machines on the factory floor are connected to a machine cloud that enables remote monitoring, predictive maintenance and quality management. Operators and manufacturers of machines can manage their assets at remote sites, while having visibility into performance and usage. Predictive maintenance and service solutions allow equipment manufacturers and operators of machinery to monitor machine health remotely, predict failures and proactively maintain assets.

Harley Davidson Regroups with Digitized Operations

A Smart Factory is not limited to automation of a single production facility. It incorporates integration across core functions – from production, materials sourcing, supply chain and warehousing to sale of the final product.

Visionary companies like Harley-Davidson Inc. are at the forefront of Industry 4.0 innovation with its use of end-to-end digital engineering. In Harley-Davidson’s new manufacturing facility, every machine is a connected device and every variable is continuously measured and analyzed. Equipment provides performance data that the manufacturing system uses to anticipate maintenance issues before machines break, minimizing workflow interruptions.

eCommerce integration lets customers personalize their bikes by choosing paint colors, frame designs and gas tank sizes. Dealers connect online to the Harley-Davidson manufacturing process and customers place their customized orders immediately at purchase.

Harley-Davidson has experienced incredible improvements since moving to a smart factory. The company reduced its operating costs by $200 million at one plant alone and saw an efficiency in its production line.

The single biggest change is the speed of order fulfillment. Harley-Davidson moved from a fixed 21-day production schedule for new orders down to only six hours.

Make Way for Industry 4.0

The number of companies that have adopted Smart Factory technology is growing but manufacturers are still hesitant. Some claim they have invested too much in existing machinery that will still work for many years. They have also raised fears of security breaches and are pushing for more standardization.

For manufacturers who are dragging their feet, they are only delaying the inevitable. Smart factories are coming and will be prevalent in the future. A Mckinsey Report reveals that companies expect Industry 4.0 to increase revenues by 23% and productivity by 26% and many are preparing for changes to their business model. Those who don’t believe in the force of Smart Factories, will be left behind as new, smarter, more agile competitors enter the marketplace.