We are now at the beginning of the fourth industrial revolution. The third industrial revolution, also called the digital revolution, concerned the development of computers and IT systems. The fourth industrial revolution builds on this, but is considered a new era in view of the speed, the scope and the enormous impact it has.
The speed with which technological breakthroughs present themselves is unprecedented. There is an exponential growth instead of a linear growth. These developments will lead to radical transformations all over the world. Complete production, management and governance systems will be adapted.
An important development is the Internet of Things (IoT). In smart industry, manufacturing companies use more and more sensors to measure such dimensions as temperature, humidity, pressure, water quality, gases and chemicals, smoke, infrared, fluid levels, images, and movement and acceleration. The Internet of Things is growing very fast and it is expected that by 2020 30 billion objects will be part of this network.
Cisco expects that in 2020 these objects will generate about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day (that’s 2.5 followed by 18 zeros). AI is needed to extract useful information from all this data. The information collected through sensors in machines by manufacturers create opportunities to better support their customers. Services are playing an ever-greater role in the business model of manufacturing companies. This migration is called servitization.
During her talk Els van de Kar will give examples of her experience on managing ICT in Practice as an entrepreneur in this era. Next, she will give examples from the IoT projects ‘IoT4MKB’ and ‘IoT in the Fitbox’ which illustrate how companies in the new era are working on their future business models by implementing IoT.
Dr. Els van de Kar works in the domain of Service Design and Innovation as researcher, lecturer, consultant and entrepreneur. Her research interests include service design, mobile service systems and organizing innovation by value networks. Van de Kar has more than 25 years working experience in industry at the Dutch telecommunication operator KPN Telecom (8 years), as independent consultant (14 years) and as managing director of the company EventsIT.
As a business practitioner Van de Kar develops Telecommunication and Internet Services. As a researcher she investigates and develops design methods behind innovative services and leads innovation programs. She did this as assistant professor in Delft for about 10 years and independently as program director of innovation programs. Nowadays, she is part-time Associate Professor Business Service Innovation at Fontys Hogescholen and independent innovation consultant. At the moment she is working on the Service Engineering Lab and various IoT projects.