The fourth industrial revolution has arrived. But Swiss manufacturers are not keeping pace with the speed of transformational change it brings. This represents a real danger to the country’s industrial base. Unless radical action is taken, Swiss businesses will be overtaken by disruptive competitors and new market entrants.
Single project, bottom-up approaches to transformation are the current norm. From physical plant changes to the integration of big data – too many companies show cost efficiencies as evidence of their effective i4.0 transformation. This gives senior executives a false sense of security. It also misses the point of i4.0 entirely.