Is your country ready for Industry 4.0? - World Economic Forum
It was no surprise to see the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting, which took place in wintry Davos under the theme of Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World, getting plenty of news coverage and TV airtime. Somewhat less heralded but perhaps more relevant for those down in the industrial trenches and keeping tabs on Industry 4.0 was the "Readiness for the Future of Production Report", released by the WEF just a week before the gathering of the global elite in Switzerland.
This World Economic Forum study, which is available online, assesses the relative strengths of no less than 100 countries around the world in terms of how ready they are to capitalize on the future production opportunities afforded by (what the WEF calls) the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The assessment methodology is described in quite some detail in the 266-page document, but essentially, countries are ranked on two components: Structure of Production – which reflects the complexity (higher is good) and scale (higher is good) of a country’s current production base; and Drivers of Production – performance across six key enablers that position a country to capitalize on emerging technologies and opportunities in the Industry 4.0 future.
So what about the results? Based on the Structure of Production and Drivers of Production scores the WEF ranks each of the 100 countries into one of four groups: Leading (25); High Potential (7); Legacy (10); and Nascent (58). It should not be too surprising that the Leading countries are the more economically developed nations of the world, located primarily in Europe and North America, with the US coming out tops. Or that the Nascent countries are those mainly at the other end of the development spectrum, hailing predominantly from Central/Latin America, Asia and Africa.
The High Potential category captures those countries that score well on Drivers of Production but poorly on Structure of Production, signifying a limited industrial base but with the key enablers in place and providing the opportunity to move ahead in an Industry 4.0 future. High Potential countries include Australia, New Zealand, Norway, and the UAE. Conversely, Legacy countries are strong on Structure of Production but weak on Drivers of Production, which means they risk falling behind in an evolving Industry 4.0 world. Those countries include India, Russian Federation, Mexico, and Thailand.
A key conclusion from the WEF’s study into the future of production is the fact that all countries – even Leaders – have some way to travel on a transformation journey that is only just beginning, and no country is yet close to harnessing the full potential of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
(from blog by Bob Gill, ARC Advisory Group)
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