New technologies and innovation have driven digitization of factories and their productive models, benefiting organizations by improving their productivity, competitiveness and sustainability. We are now in a phase of immediate opportunities in terms of operational efficiency (justified by means of cost saving) but this is only the start of a promising future.

During the enerTIC-brokered Industry 4.0 Sustainability and Energy-Efficiency conference ("Eficiencia Energética y Sostenibilidad en la Industria 4.0” de enerTIC), GMV took part in a debating forum investigating how technology is driving the new industrial revolution, as well as the energy sector. Within this forum, Miguel Hormigo, Manager of the Southern Region and Industry 4.0 Team Leader at GMV Secure e-Solutions, stressed that the new transformation stage calls for trade professionals with “such skills as creativity, emotional intelligence, collaboration and critical thinking”. “We need to accept that Industry 4.0 and the digital transformation in general are going to change the job market; some jobs will disappear, to be replaced by other new ones yet to be defined” argued Hormigo. In general, over the coming years, “there will be an increase in highly qualified STEM-related jobs (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) such as experts in cybersecurity, data engineering or programming, among others”.

Globalization, the sheer speed with which the changes are occurring, the social challenges we are faced with and new technologies all call for immersion in a continuous innovation process. The technology “driving the digital transformation or the so-called enabling technologies such as Big Data and artificial intelligence, cyber-physical systems, simulation and virtual reality, robotics and autonomous systems, additive manufacturing, cybersecurity, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things and other game-changing technologies emerging now or in the future will all help to streamline productive procedures and processes with a knock-on improvement in energy efficiency”.