Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………..2


Task ……………………………………………..2


Concluding remarks……………………………4


References ……………………………………..5

Introduction


Industry 4.0 also called the fourth Industrial Revolution (Stăncioiu, 2017), and signifies a new phase in the control and management of industrial value chain (Gilchrist, 2016). With the rapid advancement of technology, business landscape has been changed, businesses are growing beyond the borders by transforming them from the classical system to modern digital system. The aim of this assignment is to critically discuss how PwC has adapted to Industry 4.0 and how the company is utilizing the industry to boost the business performance.


Task


The Fourth Industrial Revolution or Industry 4.0, is the continuous transformation of conventional industrial and manufacturing practises integrated with the latest smart and advanced technology (Bartodziej, 2017). It focuses primarily on the large-scale use of machine to machine interaction (M2M), and Internet of Things (IoT) adoption to offer enhanced automation, effective and enhanced communication and self-monitoring and control of the machines, wherein machines can analyse and diagnose problem and independent without intervention of human (Sikorski, et al., 2017).


Simply, Industry 4.0 can be referred to as the smart and intelligent integration of processes and machines for the organization with the help of communication and information technology. Alcácer, and Cruz-Machado, (2019) have defined Industry 4.0 as “a synonym for the latest automation trend and exchange of data in manufacturing technologies, such as IoT, cyber-physical systems, cloud computation, and cognitive computation to create smart factory.


As it has been observed many industries have used the IoT and Industry 4.0 to transform the complicated systems as the drivers for business growth. This claim can be viewed from the PwC’s adoption of industry 4.0 – Building the digital enterprise. Where the investment of PwC in the digital industrial production is increasing rapidly (PwC, 2016). PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) is an international, professional service network, it has the head office in London, the UK. PwC is the second most professional service network. It is firmed to assist the complicated system function, transform, and adapt to deliver the benefit to the society and the community. The company is well aware of the vitality of the latest IT trends such as the Industry 4.0 and IoT. Therefore, the company invest about $900nm each year in the digital technology (PwC, 2016). PwC has estimated that each year this investment increase but consequently reduce the cost of operation. The enterprise has adopted the digital and technological system such as Industry 4.0 and IoT improve the efficacy of production process and the management (PwC, 2016).
Here is the way how PwC has adopted industry 4.0. PwC works with a famous airline that uses structured information from various sensors as well as unstructured data, created normally by maintenance technicians while working correctly with aircraft. The data is typically extracted and converted into the main variables which are then incorporated into predictive models to search at any of the critical valued trends that indicate the firm’s imminent problem. It was noted that with the implementation of this IoT and Industry 4.0 method, PwC was able to assist the airline to forecast the anticipated delays and cancelation of the flights (PwC, 2016). Through this way it is clear that Industry 4.0 and IoT are smart enough to make the predictive model more powerful and this efficiency later allows the company to gain competitive edge.


Contrary, it is also completely obvious that PwC has modified its management system to boost its technology and performance. when managing its client (Oil and Gas Company), at other locations, PwC used IoT sensors in the pumping system, are also an important feature of the oil environment (PwC, 2016). Those are extremely harsh, filthy and warm conditions in most situations. Consequently, people cannot foresee pumping failure. Moreover, the application of the automated pumping systems Industry 4.0 and IoT are capable of producing information which can be used to avoid a failure and shut down the pumping mechanism in anticipation of a failure. This shows that the use of Industry 4.0 and IoT has helped to improve its performance and gain more experience and skills in solving different kinds of problems with the product.


While implementing these strategies into organization, PwC, has chosen a theoretical framework based on the Change management model by Kurt Lewin (Hassan, 2018). In which the first main phase of managing change is ‘unfreezing’, which gives the company an opportunity to make important changes. In this phase PwC initially stopped its business activities after understanding the vitality of latest technological trend’s implication. The company stepped to the second phase of Lewin’s theory that is ‘Change’, which highlights on the strategies of the execution in order to accept the planned change. In this phase the PwC’s management team welcomed the change to in a constructive and positive way. The successful implication of this phase has enabled the company to become effective and technically advanced. In the last, Lewin’s theory’s third step has been utilized that is ‘refreezing’, which helps to evaluate effectiveness of the implemented change. Where PwC has conducted tests of the employees to evaluate the effectiveness of the adopted change.


Contrary, it is also an obvious perception that implicated change will impact both the external and the internal factors of the PwC (Cameron, and Green, 2019). But the analysis also shows that the implicated change will bring the effectiveness and the efficiency within the organization. Most significantly, productivity and the criteria of the performance will be enhanced. Moreover, the process by which the technological change has been adopted is verified for its effectiveness which has enabled PwC achieve the proficiency and the competence to cope with various emerging social, environmental, technological, and managerial issues (Long, et al., 2016).


Concluding remarks


From the above discussing it has been observed that Industry 4.0 was just increasingly assisting to enhance the firm’s performance but it also affects external and internal operations of the firm. Industry 4.0 is fundamentally an innovative approach, which is adopted by PwC to improve the productivity of the organization. In addition, PwC has shown that they have adopted the IoT and changed the ways of services provision. To effectively adopt the change process of going digital has been PwC utilized the Lewin’s change management model, which is proved to be the best in this kind of transformation.

References

Alcácer, V. and Cruz-Machado, V., 2019. Scanning the industry 4.0: A literature review on technologies for manufacturing systems. Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal, 22(3), pp.899-919.


Bartodziej, C.J., 2017. The concept industry 4.0. In The concept industry 4.0 (pp. 27-50). Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden.


Cameron, E. and Green, M., 2019. Making sense of change management: A complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change. Kogan Page Publishers.


Gilchrist, A., 2016. Introducing Industry 4.0. In Industry 4.0 (pp. 195-215). Apress, Berkeley, CA


Hassan, A.T., 2018. Organizational change management: A literature review. Available at SSRN 3135770.


Long, T.B., Blok, V. and Coninx, I., 2016. Barriers to the adoption and diffusion of technological innovations for climate-smart agriculture in Europe: evidence from the Netherlands, France, Switzerland and Italy. Journal of Cleaner Production, 112, pp.9-21.


PwC, 2016. Industry 4.0 building your digital enterprise april 2016. [online] Available at: https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/industries-4.0/landing-page/industry-4.0-building-your-digital-enterprise-april-2016.pdf.


Sikorski, J.J., Haughton, J. and Kraft, M., 2017. Blockchain technology in the chemical industry: Machine-to-machine electricity market. Applied energy, 195, pp.234-246.


Stăncioiu, A., 2017. THE FOURTH INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION „INDUSTRY 4.0”. Fiabilitate Şi Durabilitate, (1), pp.74-78.