Ricerc@Sapienza

The concept of digitizing everything is already a reality. Automation, artificial intelligence, IoT, Big Data and Big data Analytics, machine learning and other advanced technologies are capturing and analyzing a wealth of data that gives us sizable amount and types of information to work from. One of the major challenges we face is to change the way we think, train and work with data in order to create value through advanced technologies.
Industry 4.0 seems to dictate the end of consolidated models (mental, educational, managerial, organizational, cultural, social etc.) and, at the same time, it asks for new 'lenses' and interpretative paradigms enabling old and new actors to succeed in such magmatic landscape. Millions of workplaces are being vaporized in a rhythm never seen before, while others are emerging towards becoming of billion-dollar companies (i.e. unicorn companies), which are managed by a reduced number of highly skilled professionals. Industry 4.0 environments are made of diverse, general purpose technologies spread across many disciplines with many different types of subject matter experts. However, there are few standards and processes designed to assist each entity to speak a common language and think systemically. Academics and practitioners are trying to deeply comprehend the consequences of Industry 4.0 revolution for employees, businesses, technology users/enablers and the society at large. This is particularly challenging in the newly emerging socio-technological context where organizational boundaries and the distinction between services and manufacturing are getting fuzzier than ever. Originally, the research conceives and analyses the rise of Industry 4.0 as a process of new-industrialization fostered by general purpose technologies (rapid prototyping, additive technologies, 3D printing etc.). In turn, this leads to conceive the Industry 4.0 revolution as a new long Kondratiev wave: a new long cycle that enables the dissemination on a planetary scale of creative, productive and distributive processes, with the consequent reduction of the material constraints that influence transaction costs over time and space. This enlightens the main aspect of this revolution: it affects not only the industrial processes, but it involves the diffusion of these general purpose technologies in the daily life, both at individual and social level. The consequences on the future of human work, on the rules of social interaction will be enormous, as well as on permanent and no permanent human settlements. In this regard, the research aims to outline new scenarios of value co-creation that will arise from the relocation of innovative manufacturing and new materials, as well as analyzing the new possibility of re-shoring of the production in urban areas as a consequence of minor environmental impacts and reduced layout requirements. The exploitation of the enormous algorithmic capacity has not yet been fully understood in order to make production processes more sustainable and respectful of biodiversity.
The research then tackles an absolutely new and urgent topic: how the 4.0 technologies can systematically combine efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability. For interdisciplinary scientific research, this is among the most complex challenges. In fact, on the one hand the new availability of enormous amounts of data and the statistical tools for elaborations proposes an entirely new way of understanding the world. The 4.0 technologies offers tools for analyzing systems (physical, biological, social, etc.) at all scales. On the other, it must be recognized that scientists, policy makers, managers and citizens are under a flood of data: this increases the need for new theoretical framework. There is no doubt that 4.0 technologies will have a major influence on all aspects of life (biodiversity, sustainability, social peace, wealth distribution, employment etc.) and will be of great help in the scientific field. But their contribution depends on the extent to which they will be integrated with the deeper conceptualization and with the traditional elaboration of the theory. To date, on this front, reflection and scientific contribution are still in its infancy, but they have enormous potential to provide valuable support in terms of new interpretative perspectives and analysis for public and private decision-makers. The research aims to provide an original contribution in terms of both the theoretical frameworks and the applicative repercussions of the general purpose technologies enabling the Industry 4.0.