02 October 2016 Ss. Guardian Angels Comments | Letters to the editor | Church | Life | Family | Headings | Dossier | World | Popotus Who we are | Subscriptions | Contacts Chronicle | Politics | Culture | Economy | Shows | Sport | Science & Technology | Video | Photo BOLOGNA | MILAN | ROME Avvenire Home Page > Comments > Work, a real industry 4.0 challenge Comments It is not just about new technological frontiers Work, a real industry 4.0 challenge Francesco Seghezzi and Michele Tiraboschi 1 October 2016 Facebook twitter google + mail font print What if the real Jobs Act was called Industry 4.0? It is not a provocation, but the observation of a fact. With the plan on digital manufacturing presented by Minister Calenda, the announcement with which, almost three years ago, Matteo Renzi launched his version of Barack Obama's work plan (the American Jobs Act , proposing extensive investments for the modernization of the production system in line with the new digital revolution. For the second manufacturing country in Europe, with an industrial sector severely weakened in terms of employment and production by the international crisis of the last decade, this means not only more productivity for businesses, but also higher wages and, with them, a decisive boost to consumption and internal demand. Despite the common vulgate, the challenge of Industry 4.0 is not purely technological, but cultural and above all anthropological. A challenge that can therefore be won only if technology is not called upon to replace man, but if anything, to enable his skills, autonomy and creativity in the workplace. To understand it, we need to focus on the most urgent issue that is blocking Italian economic growth today: productivity. The constant decline and recent stagnation of this indicator has different origins which certainly lie in the quantity and quality of investments in technology, but even more in the lack of a work organization that provides for the development of professional skills, and the full participation of workers. Today the whole challenge is played on the combination of investments in technology and investments in skills and therefore on a new centrality of the person in production processes. If Industry 4.0 fails this challenge, pushing too hard on technology without considering the "work factor" will all be lost. Today, for example, there are computers capable of performing complex calculations, impossible for humans, but to be used they require workers with the right professional skills, otherwise they are numbers without meaning and a concrete application. If the only goal were to develop these information systems to the maximum, we would find ourselves in the paradoxical situation of having such advanced technology as to be completely useless because it could not be used. A second example: today with Industry 4.0 we will be able to have "stem production lines", which means that with the same components they can produce highly customized goods according to the consumer. However, this is only possible thanks to programmers who, by interpreting the customer's requests, are able to identify the exact process to be able to produce it. The fact that today there can be no productive and competitive work without technology does not at all mean that there can be technology, even the most advanced, without work. All this involves risks, first of all that of deluding oneself that investing in training and human capital does not bring the same effects and benefits as buying new machinery. Nothing could be more wrong if we think about the role that, for example, a researcher can have in a factory, bringing immense added value in terms of innovation and improvement of processes and products. In short, there is no real industrial revolution without its humanism. A humanism that today needs concreteness through investments in the education system and in the training of workers and this explains the rediscovery of alternation and apprenticeship that we must stop considering as forms of work of the past. In this context, the system of new incentives contained in the Industry 4.0 plan seems to be moving in the correct direction. Not a revival of the old (and unsuccessful) industrial policy, where the political decision maker authoritatively establishes what the common good is and the direction to follow, but a policy for companies and people according to the logic of subsidiarity and responsibility that do not compress, as in the Fordist model, but rather they value freedom and the concrete contribution of each of us. © reserved reproduction FEATURED ARTICLES Apostolic journey to the Caucasus The Pope's embrace of the patriarch Ilia II "Among us, the unity of which the world is thirsty" ANALYSIS / THE EFFECTS OF THE OPEC STRATEGY ON CRUDE OIL Goodbye to discounted oil but without regrets Reportage Plural Turkey. It's still possible The film Orlandi case, the mystery continues Leather stories We'll give you the slow motion Copyright 2016 © Avvenire | VAT number 00743840159 | Credits | Privacy | For advertising This site uses third-party cookies (including profiling) and technical cookies. 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