Snapshots from the near future: Part 1

A taste of a country undergoing the 4th Industrial Revolution

Part 1

A taste of mirror world

In his 2003 novel titled ¨Pattern Recognition¨, Canadian writer William Gibson develops the idea of a mirror world, a sort of different approach to develop manufactured objects and products according to cultural and intellectual differences.

In many aspects, for a person who lives in Argentina, Germany is a sort of mirror world, where you can see aspects of life that are the exact opposite of what we are used to experience daily.

Life at 250 Km/h

My first mirror world experience in Germany was when I got out of Frankfurt Airport, walked to the train terminal located next to the airport, acquired a city train ticket to the Frankfurt Main Station and, half an hour later, found myself comfortably seated in an ICE high speed train going to Hannover at 250 Km/h surrounded by silence. There was practically no mechanical noise in the cabin, and if you started to listen to music with a good set of headphones, the experience became somewhat surreal.

The German countryside is initially very distinctive, almost every available area of terrain is either cultivated, covered by trees arranged in small forests or by these little yellow flowers called rapes in English, raps in German and colza in Spanish. They look beautiful, but in fact they are grown not for the looks but to produce oil (canola oil) and most importantly to be Germany´s first source of raw material for a growing bio-diesel industry.

The landscape features typical little German towns with their characteristic architecture, (characteristic for us non-mirror world inhabitants, who lack the refinement to distinguish the differences between, let´s say, Saxonian and Thuringian architecture), perfectly paved roads with sleek German cars, the occasional sight of other high speed trains and the always present huge windmills employed for electric energy production. There are hundreds of them, everywhere.

Some areas are also covered by solar panel arrays, and in the little towns an ever-growing number of traditionally shaped houses feature solar panels in their roofs.

Meanwhile in the ICE, the silence remained, everybody focused on reading (either actual books or e-book readers), working on their laptops (ICE trains offer free high speed onboard wi-fi) or, as everywhere else in either mirror world or ours, fiddling with their smartphones. The seats feature USB charging ports and 220 AC outlets.

In this mirror world, all traveling planning can be done by smartphone, online or via automated kiosks located in each terminal. With this idea in mind, I had bought a local rechargeable SIM card for my phone to remain connected for the following weeks.

The train system works like a high precision clock, delays are uncommon and even if such an eventuality may occur, the DB (Deutsche Bahn) travel planning app alerts you that a delay may be possible and alternative connections you may take if you miss the one you need.

Arrival to the Hannover Messe

Eventually, I got to Hannover, switched to a local train and arrived at my hotel located in the little town of Hamlin, (yes, the same town from the Hamlin flutist story of our youth). The fair attracts so much public that all the hotels in the city were completely booked, so neighborhood towns also host visitants.

Next day was my first at the Hannover Messe, this year´s partner country was Poland, and this country´s industrial motto is ¨Smart Means Poland¨, meaning that they plan to base all future economic growth (which is substantial for a European country) in Industry 4.0 concepts.

The Hannover Messe is the closest attempt to reunite in a single place the trends and players of the automation industry, whether factory or process oriented and encompassing solution providers and technology development centers. It´s an enormous exhibition and covers all the Deutsche Messe AG facilities (the Deutsche Messe AG is the company that owns the fairground), meaning that to walk from the north gate to the south gate nonstop you´ll spent at least 45 minutes at a fast pace. The Hanover fairground covers 496.000 m2 of indoor space distributed in 27 pavilions and a convention center with 35 multi function rooms, making it the largest exhibition place in the world.

All the main Industry players show what is their newest and hottest stuff, combining enormous booths featuring stylish product displays and small but fashionable bars. Dozens of affable company representatives and employees spent the days following strict meeting schedules often arranged months ago. It is not simply an exhibition fair, it’s a place where actual business is being done. That´s one of the reasons why the Hannover Messe has survived in this era of teleconferences, virtual meetings and corporate skype brainstorming sessions.

It´s current focus is the Industry 4.0 concept and its close relative: the IIoT or Industrial Internet of Things concept.

These concepts describe a group of intersecting technologies that would provide a smart background for energy distribution, efficient energy production, management and storage, flexible manufacturing with emphasis on extreme customization and rapid development of products. It also implies pervasive sensing, the generation of massive quantities of data and the technologies required to make actual and beneficial use of that data. Finally, it makes a strong argument for the use of artificial intelligence and autonomous devices to enhance productivity, quality and cost efficiency.

A dark mirror shade?

So far, a nerd´s paradise. But although one can´t avoid a feeling of amazement by this display of robot based manufacturing plants, autonomous vehicles, smart energy grids, smart homes and smart factories, there is one question that lingers still unanswered:

For sure these advances will improve our industries and factories, but will also replace thousands of workplaces of skilled workers whose experience and craftsmanship will become irrelevant. Of course, the new technologies will create new work opportunities, but it remains to be seen if these are about the same number as the ones becoming extinct and for sure these new jobs will be oriented toward highly technically skilled persons, a very specialized profile of worker whose demand is already over passing the available offer.

The need for the right kind of education

And such works can´t be taught in the traditional academic structure, still following in many cases the ¨serial production model¨ applied to education.

Germany is a leading country in trying to overcome these issues, by modifying and adapting its educational system towards the creation of flexible technicians and specialists as fast as possible, but according to some stats over 180.000 highly specialized jobs requiring advanced STEM training are yet expecting to be filled.

Meanwhile, in the far east, thousands of students join the ranks of STEM oriented careers in a similar but much more extensive potential market: India and China.

This new world, increasingly and exponentially digitized doesn´t seem to be made for everyone but for the most capable ones. The basis of western democratic civilization: middle classes with intermediate level degrees, stable works and an assured retyring age are under the growing risk of becoming a thing from the past.

Being an active member of the automation community, I´m very interested in the development of automation technology. But as human being I also question myself if the path that our society is taking will leave in its way millions of individuals virtually out of the system.

Of course, reality is infinitely more complex that my previous simplified description of the shape of the things to come.

History repeats itself, but in a greater scale

Also, I´m not a luddite, like the angry textile workers who, at the beginning of the 2nd industrial revolution in the early 1800´s, tried unsuccessfully to destroy steam powered textile machinery that was throwing them out the system.

After multiple meetings that I held at the Hannover Messe industrial fair, the feeling that big changes are coming, that they are unavoidable and that the world as we currently know will soon suffer extreme change became stronger.

And so, we will need to learn and adapt as fast as we can to this new reality. Denial is no longer an option, we should accept a life of permanent learning on the run.

As a technical trainer, I have the responsibility of finding the best way to transmit not information but knowledge, not plain data but a true understanding of the issues involved.

To help the younger generations into this new brave world the actual comprehension of the concepts involved and a familiarity with the use of technology will be indispensable.

My first day at the Hannover Messe ended up with a cocktail party hosted by the government of the free state of Thuringia at one of the Deustche Messe AG exhibition complex. Germany’s government structure is somewhat complicated, so I’ll avoid explanations about what a free state means. After some speeches by local politicians and authorities the assistants switched into party mode when a local band started to play old songs from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. They were fine musicians and the party mood was enjoyable. A celebration in mirror world.

Through both days, I had interviews with several persons and became acquainted with some interesting new products, concepts and some original great ideas which will be the subject of my next posts.

But I didn´t want to start them without making the previous clearly stated.

The last hours at the Messe were tiresome both for exhibitors as well as for assistants after so much work, but weekend had arrived and we had planned a two days long visit to Berlin, to get a taste of how actual life in Industry 4.0 Germany is really like. For this year, the Hannover Messe was over.

We headed for the Hannover Central Station to catch the next ICE train to Berlin. We had no hotel reservations but trusted our mirror world SIM card equipped phone to help us solve such trivial mirror world issues.

Mirko Torrez Contreras is a Process Automation consultant and trainer. He is convinced that new technologies requiere its users to fully understand the actual concepts behind them to take advantage of the benefits that they promise. In order to achieve this he thinks that a new approach to technical training is indispensable.

This series will continue next week.