It's time for Industry 4.1

The evangelization period is finished.

We learned that before was the steam, then the electricity, then computers, then interconnection and integration. We have seen slides copied from other slides. Somebody created the drawing showing the 4 steps of the Industrial Revolution and all the other 'consultants' copied that drawing. Some market research company published the trends in the IoT segment, others published trends that are completely different. Who really knows? Who is able to check these forecasts? The buzzwords have been 'benefits', 'fundamental technologies', 'digitalisation' and many others. We followed conferences, we read articles, then we went back to our companies with the basic question still not answered: "What should I do now?".
So, it's time to apply the concepts we heard about, implementing our personal way to Industry 4.0. It's time for Industry 4.1.
Year 2018 will be probably a year of disillusion: many companies will find impossible to switch from theory to practice. Many other companies will discover that the benefits of Industry 4.0 are not so impressive. Specially in countries, like Italy for instance, where a fast Internet connection is still a dream in many areas. Not in the deep south, but 70 km from Milano. So, the sales of IoT devices, of CPSs and many other devices will probably slow down in 2018. It's the history: it happened when PCs where first introduced in the factories, it happened with the first industrial software packages, etc. It will take time. But it will happen. Probably,