Interfaces for Industry 4.0

So are we in fact on the verge of a fourth industrial revolution? Peter Herweck, Head of Corporate Strategy at Siemens, takes a more sober view. "We’re talking about a time period of 20 years or so,” he says. "The result will appear to be revolutionary from today’s point of view, but ultimately it will involve a large number of development steps.”

Nevertheless, experts agree that future production facilities will be much smarter than today’s factories. This intelligence will be made possible by the use of miniaturised processors, storage units, sensors, and transmitters that will be embedded in nearly all conceivable types of machines, as well as smart tools and new software for structuring data flows. Products and machines will be able to communicate with one another and exchange commands - the factories of the future will optimise and control their manufacturing processes largely by themselves.

The German federal government has set aside approximately EUR200 million to help industry associations, research institutes, and companies develop an implementation strategy.

So it is no surprise that German research organisation Fraunhofer IAO has been looking into the effects that developments in the field of manufacturing will have on the interface between humans and technology. The study, which draws on workshops and interviews with relevant experts, highlights the potential for future-proof human-machine interfaces (HMIs) and discusses the challenges that will have to be overcome in designing tomorrow’s engineering tools.

While the growing connectivity and intelligence of systems promise greater flexibility in processes, they also have the effect of increasing complexity. This makes it all the more important to involve the future users of an HMI early on in its development.

Fraunhofer IAO has studied the key areas to ensure humans can interact with tomorrow's manufacturing technology, including ergonomics and how to integrate interactive and recognition technologies or social media. In addition to offering specific measures and guidelines for how to design powerful HMIs, the study recommends selection criteria for the necessary engineering tools. These can serve as an aid both in designing and developing appealing HMIs and efficient engineering tools and in adopting a suitable future-proof HMI engineering environment.

For those that do, a German-language PDF version of the study is available online for free at http://www.iao.fraunhofer.de/images/iao-news/studie_future_hmi.pdf. The print version is priced EUR59 and can be ordered from the IAO shop.