Embedding Artificial Intelligence into Your Cultural DNA is Key to Industry 4.0 Success

Sixteen hundred years after ancient Greek scientist Heron of Alexandria mentioned the rudimentary steam engine, the invention went on to create the first industrial revolution, allowing production to be mechanized and forging the modern age through industrial culture. This industrial culture led to subsequent industrial revolutions, which have driven the modern age.

The second industrial revolution was driven by machines running on electricity and led to mass production of goods, as well as a further change in industrial culture driving new management practices, such as division of labour and just-in-time manufacturing to improve quality and output. 

The third industrial revolution began with the rise of electronics – the transistor and microprocessor – leading to the automation of production machinery and development of communication technologies – the Internet, Wi-Fi and cellular networks – and a cultural shift to people being empowered to work higher-level jobs, such as programming and engineering.

Enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Now, over 250 years after the steam engine helped spawn the industrial world, advances in computational technology, along with the merging of sensors and digital technologies, are changing the fundamentals of that world. The Fourth Industrial Revolution goes beyond manufacturing, with the intersection of technologies and culture-enabling cyber-connected systems extending beyond the factory floor. It will transform the way we live and relate to one another, creating new industries and economic growth in what is referred to as Industry 4.0.

Leaders in Industry 4.0 stand to gain

• A better customer experience, through new and existing products and services
• Improved productivity and increases in efficiency
• New revenue streams and improved profitability
• Greater collaboration (internally and externally)

To capture these gains, leaders in this new era will leverage a growth in data velocity and volume from Internet of Things (IoT) devices as the fuel to artificial intelligence (AI), with parallel processing as the engine. While technology will be a key driver of the industrial revolution, organizations looking to lead in Industry 4.0 will go beyond simply connecting their factories and products with sensors. They will transform their cultural DNA from an industrial focus to a digital focus underpinned by AI.

Embedding AI into your cultural DNA

Although culture is often an afterthought, leaders in Industry 4.0 will emphasize the importance of embedding a digital culture within their organizations’ DNA – in their people, their products, their services and their platforms. Those who ignore the importance of digital culture will become laggards who cannot keep pace with their competition.

A digital culture is one that empowers all employees to express ideas, rapidly prototype and think creatively. A culture that embeds artificial intelligence into its DNA is one that encourages all employees to identify opportunities and to articulate ideas for implementing machine learning into their daily work life. For example, in a recent meeting with a chief technology officer at a recycling company, I was told that the idea to implement machine learning to proactively monitor for site visitors on a factory floor came from a forklift driver and not from the information technology department.

To prepare for this cultural journey, Dell Technologies runs an Artificial Intelligence Masterclass in Asia Pacific and Japan, which provides our customers with a foundational understanding of AI and steps for identifying the business problem they are trying to solve with AI. Some of the key questions I encourage customers to ask themselves, once they have a foundational understanding of AI are:

• What problem are we trying to solve?
• What data do we have?
• Where is our data located?
• What data will we need in the future?
• How will we measure our success?

Building the foundation for a digital transformation

Being a leader means not only embedding digital culture within your people, products and services, but also building a technology foundation that extends artificial intelligence from the edge to the core, and to the cloud. As a partner in the digital transformation journey, Dell Technologies has

dedicated a great deal of resources toward helping our customers reach this goal.

• To ensure you capture value in Industry 4.0, Dell Technologies has developed Ready Solutions for AI, Deep Learning with Intel powered by Nauta. With a modular design that allows for the seamless and independent scaling of computational performance and data storage, this solution provides data scientists and technologists with the ability to take advantage of artificial intelligence throughout their end-to-end value chain.
• Embedded within our global Customer Solution Center network, Dell Technologies has launched Artificial Intelligence Experience Zones. As a space dedicated to knowledge sharing, the zones offer our customers and channel partners with an immersive AI experience, serving as a catalyst for AI understanding and adoption amongst organizations in the Asia Pacific and Japan region.
• Through AI Masterclass training, AI expert engagements, customers are guided through the necessary steps to kick-start AI initiatives, including design, installation, data science techniques and, most importantly, delivering tangible business outcomes for their organizations.

Our simplified approach ensures you have the right platform to thrive in the digital era of Industry 4.0.

Key take away

We are at the precipice of Industry 4.0, fuelled by the digitization of the modern world, parallel processing and data growth, and underpinned by artificial intelligence. Now is the time to assure you have the right tools, techniques and services in place to capture and leverage the opportunities it is creating. By embedding artificial intelligence into your organization’s cultural DNA you will be well-positioned to lead in this new era.

To learn more

• To explore the Deep Learning with Intel solution and other Dell EMC Ready Solutions for AI, visit com/ReadyforAI.
• For a hands-on experience with products and solutions built for AI, talk to your Dell Technologies representative about working with Dell EMC’s Centers of Excellence to design a solution, test cutting-edge technologies and collaborate with experts.