Assume that one day, you suddenly want a car. You take out your mobile phone, click on the APP, and enter your customization requirements. You just wait for the factory to arrange production, assembly, and distribution.

Such customized smart production may not be far away. In the era of Industry 4.0, every consumer can control production according to his own will. However, this is far from complete. At that time, the existence of the Internet of Things will further transform humankind's way of life.

For example, the refrigerator in your home can automatically sense the lack of milk, automatically send milk information to the factory, and the factory customizes milk for your taste, even with your name. Milk will be delivered to your home in time.

The above-mentioned science-fictioned “Internet of Everything” scenario is an industry 4.0 that the German government and the business community are trying to achieve. Why is Germany proposing Industry 4.0? What is the driving force behind it? Can Chinese companies really learn?

In the past 20 years, the Internet revolution led by the United States has deeply changed the way of life of human beings. Other countries have followed suit. Some analysts believe that in order to compete with the United States, an industry giant in the era of industry 3.0, Germany is eager to stop information technology from dominating the manufacturing industry and lead the new industrial revolution to become the maker of new game rules.

Germany has a different competitive advantage from the United States: manufacturing. Whether it is quality or technology, German manufacturing is synonymous with excellence all over the world. About 70 percent of Germany's manufacturing products are exported to the rest of the world. It is precisely because of this that in the economic crisis of recent years, the German economy has been able to maintain a strong stability, in stark contrast to the United States and other European countries.

"Specifically speaking to the software industry, Germany is indeed not the strongest, and now the strongest is undoubtedly the United States," Esser, chairman of Silicon Valley in Saxony, Germany, told reporters. But Germany also has its strengths. It is to combine technology, equipment and software to form a whole. Saxony Silicon Valley is an entrepreneurial base in Saxony, Germany. It has a large number of technology startup companies.

“Compared with the United States, Germany is a bit different. Germany has a strong manufacturing industry. It started from another foundation.” Han Peide, representative of the German Federal Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment, said that Germany’s current goal is to transform traditional manufacturing into Electronic manufacturing and the addition of new services to the manufacturing industry are purely driven by manufacturing. "Our pillar industry, in my opinion, is manufacturing." He added.

In this context, combined with traditional manufacturing advantages, Germany finally launched the Industry 4.0 strategy at the national level, and the Prime Minister Merkel came forward to endorse the book. Henning Kagermann, dean of the concept of Industry 4.0 and dean of the German Academy of Engineering, said that Industry 4.0 has provided an opportunity for Germany to further consolidate its position as a manufacturing base, supplier of production equipment, and provider of IT business solutions.

In other words, the factory can optimize and control the production process in the future. According to the industry's further assumptions, in addition to the interconnection of products and machines, Industry 4.0 will also realize the interconnection of factories, consumers, products, and information data in the future, ultimately achieving the interconnection of everything, and thus reconstructing the production mode of the entire society. From the German manufacturing base, a lot of conditions are already in place. What is missing is how to achieve a smart connection.