Industry 5.0?

By Pat Dixon, PE, PMP

President of DPAS, (DPAS-INC.com)

Over the past 3 years I have explained in these articles what Industry 4.0 is. We are about 12 years into the inflection point from Industry 4.0 and many facilities are not near the implementation and promise of this new era, and there remains confusion on what this era even means.

In the midst of this confusion and flux, we now have people saying we are in or on the cusp of Industry 5.0. An internet search of "Industry 5.0" will yield a lot of results. Some people even claim to be the father of Industry 5.0. How can Industry 5.0 have been birthed before Industry 4.0 has been realized?

The list of Industry 5.0 attributes seems to include the following:

• Eliminating waste
• The first industrial evolution created by humans
• People working alongside robots and smart machines
• Robots helping humans work better and faster by leveraging advanced technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and big data
• Industry 5.0 is aimed at supporting - not superseding - humans
• Industry 5.0 is about finding the optimal balance of efficiency and productivity
• Empower people to realize the basic human urge to express themselves - even if they have to pay a premium price.
• More anti-industrial than industrial.
• Collaborative robots provide the tools companies need to produce the personalized products consumers demand today
• The end of automation - but an "end" that is enabled at least in part by robotic automation.
• It gives workers jobs that are more meaningful than factory jobs have been in well over a century.
• Governments around the world and the leading high-tech companies need to define a framework to define the rules for machine intelligence
• Lights out business processes, highly automated manufacturing, self-managed supply chains
• Aims beyond efficiency and productivity as the sole goals, and reinforces the role and the contribution of industry to society.
• It places the wellbeing of the worker at the center of the production process and uses new technologies to provide prosperity beyond jobs and growth while respecting the production limits of the planet.
• It complements the existing "Industry 4.0" approach by specifically putting research and innovation at the service of the transition to a sustainable, human-centric and resilient industry.
• It is good for our planet as it favors circular production models and support technologies that make the use of natural resources more efficient.
• Revising existing value chains and energy consumption practices can also make industries more resilient against external shocks, such as Covid-19 crisis.
• 100% of companies are mission-driven and value-based; profit is a by-product
• Virtual reality technology will create a new economy in the Metaverse
• Powered by widespread implementation of Industry 4.0 manufacturing
• Humans are working fewer hours and may not need to work at all
• Environmental, Political, and Social Sustainability at the forefront of design

Is that clear?

While much of what people say about Industry 5.0 has some common themes, it seems like a collection of aspirational dreams. These are very nice dreams, but they are not necessarily new. For example, if the common theme of Industry 5.0 is that companies are driven by mission and value, and profits is a byproduct, John Mackey (founder of Whole Foods) wrote about that in his 2013 book "Conscious Capitalism".

I have searched for a concise definition of Industry 5.0, and it eludes me. Any explanation I have seen of Industry 5.0 seems to resemble a room littered with toys after the kids are done playing. This cannot be how we define industrial eras.

In school, students take exams, and they are graded according to a consistent classification. Grade A might be above 92%, B above 85%, C above 75%, D above 60%, and F below 60%. The system is consistent in using the same metric (% of correct answers) to classify.

Any classification system needs to be consistent to make sense. That is why the "Industry 4.0 Lexicon", which I addressed in my previous article, uses a consistent classification of defining industrial eras. That metric is the inflection point of an empowering technology applied throughout industry, as follows:

Many will disagree with this approach, but in contrast to every other approach it is the only one I have seen that is consistent. You can easily determine which industrial era is being described. If facilities are using steam but there is no electricity, it is Industry 1. If a facility has PLCs, HMI, and historians but no connectivity to MES and ERP, it is Industry 3.

If Industry 5.0 has begun or is on the horizon, what is the inflection point in empowerment that will be applied throughout industry? Can it be a single word as shown in the table above, or does it need to be a verbose treatise or list of bullet points? How would you distinguish an Industry 5.0 facility from an Industry 4.0 facility?

I take no issue with any firm aspiring to the goals of Industry 5.0 or "Conscious Capitalism". I am quite inclined to support it. However, lets not contribute to the Tower of Babel we find in industry by coming up with cool new ways to explain aspirations.