Socioeconomic and Cultural Trends Impacting Industry 4.0

Apart from significant technology trends, there are various socioeconomic and cultural trends that provoke changes and affect the implementation of Industry 4.0.
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Urbanization & Megacities​

Although urbanization is not a recent trend, it is expected to continue rapidly in the next decade. According to ESPAS, approximately 2.5 billion people are expected to be added to the urban population by 2050 with Asia being the continent with the highest number of megacities.

​It is important to take into account such concentration of inhabitants in certain areas in order to properly organize and adapt both global and local manufacturing and supply chains.
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Healthcare in Industry 4.0

Growth of global, ageing population is expected to put strain on healthcare and related industries. Various Industry 4.0 and its technological solutions could help reduce costs of medical care and introduce medical help and practices in remote or poor areas while keeping high quality of services and delivering personalized care per patient’s requirements.

​Industry 4.0 is also expected to introduce digital hospitals and propel manufacturing of customised implants, innovative tools and instruments for the medical field.
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Greater work-life balance & remote working

Employees are taking their work-life balance more seriously than ever before, and since 2020 introduced remote working on a global scale, more and more people are seeing it as a great opportunity to improve their work-life balance.

​Apart from spending more time at home, remote working helps cut transportation-related costs, saves time to people who otherwise have to travel long distances to their place of work and, in overall, helps them be more productive while also having more time to spend on other activities and family time.
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Author
European Startup Network

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Sources:

• https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332536137_Industry_40_applications_in_medical_field_A_brief_review
• https://www.impomag.com/home/article/13245182/how-industry-40-is-improving-peoples-worklife-balance