The impact of the fourth industrial revolution: a cross-country/region comparison

TLDR

The fourth industrial revolution drives IoT, CPS, and smart machines beyond organizational and territorial boundaries, prompting governments to set guidelines, yet a coordinated global understanding of its impacts remains fragmented. This paper aims to bridge that gap by systematically reviewing public policies to identify the most influential ones and assess their differences across countries and regions. The study compares public policies worldwide, detailing their durations, objectives, funding, action areas, targeted manufacturing sectors, and prioritized technologies. The review’s findings enable countries to assess their industrial infrastructure relative to challenges and coordinate public policies accordingly.

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution stimulates the advances of science and technology, in which the Internet of Things (IoT) and its supporting technologies serve as backbones for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) and smart machines are used as the promoters to optimize production chains. Such advancement goes beyond the organizational and territorial boundaries, comprising agility, intelligence, and networking. This scenario triggers governmental efforts that aim at defining guidelines and standards. The speed and complexity of the transition to the new digitalization era in a globalized environment, however, does not yet allow a common and coordinated understanding of the impacts of the actions undertaken in different countries and regions. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to bridge this gap through a systematic literature review that identifies the most influential public policies and evaluates their existing differences. This cross-country/region comparison provides a worldwide panorama of public policies' durations, main objectives, available funding, areas for action, focused manufacturing sectors, and prioritized technologies. Findings of this review can be used as the basis to analyse the position of a country against the existing challenges imposed towards its own industrial infrastructure and also to coordinate its public policies.