Industry 4.0 in Latin America: A route for its implementation

Abstract

The concept of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is very recent and its application creates great expectations, although its impact on its results has not been measured. In Europe, the US, and countries in the Far East, large companies are leading their implementation in accordance with automation standards. A different case is Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs), which face problems ranging from ignorance of technology, rigid business structures, training of human resources, lack of standards, which creates a great risk for them in their incorporation or the risk of being left out of the change. In Latin America the challenge is even greater, since industries are at a disadvantage due to their lack of automation, and even more so in SMEs for which I4.0 represents a risk. In this paper, a support scheme for the implementation of Industry 4.0 is presented, adapted to the reality of the Latin American industry that includes a work path to implement I 4.0 in SMEs.

Keywords

• industry 4.0
• i4.0 in latin america
• implementation 4.0
• smes