Exponential Disruptive Technologies and the Required Skills of Industry 4.0 : A R eview

Abstract

The 21 st century has witnessed precipitous changes spanning from the way of life to the technologies that emerged. W e have entered a nascent paradigm shift ( industry 4.0 ) where science fictions have become s cience facts, and technology fusion is the main driver. Th us , ensuring that any advancement in technology reach and benefit all is the ideal opportunity for everyone. In this study , disrupt ive technologies of industry 4.0 was explored and quantified in ter ms of the number of their appearances in published literature. Th e study aimed at identifying industry 4.0 key technologies which have been ill - defined by previous researchers and to en umer ate the required skills of industry 4.0. Comprehensive literature s urvey cover ing the field of engineering, production, and management was done from multidisciplinary databases : Google scholar, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Sage, Taylor & Francis and Emerald insight . R esults of the electronic survey s how ed that 35 disruptive tec hnologies were quantified and 13 key technologies : Internet of things, Big data, 3D printing, Cloud computing, Autonomous robots, Virtual and A ugmented reality, Cyber physical s ystem, Artificial intelligence, Smart sensors, Simulation, Nanotechnology, Dron es and Biotechnology were identified . B oth technical and personal skills to be imparted into the human workforce for industry 4.0 were report ed. The study i dentified the need to investigate the capabilit y and the readiness of developing countries in adapti ng industry 4.0 in terms of the changes in the education systems and industrial manufacturing settings. T he study proposes the need to addres s integration o f industry 4.0 concepts into the current education system