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Preface: From Gut Feel to Data
Why this book exists — and the night-shift quality problem that started it all. A word on why gut feel and data are not rivals but partners, and what this book will and will not do.
Videos in this chapter
Chapters
Chapter summaries
A short guide to every chapter — what it covers, and the videos that bring it to life.
Front matter
1 chapter
Part I: Foundations
2 chapters
1
What Is Industry 4.0?
A clear-eyed tour of the four industrial revolutions, the Gartner maturity model, and the self-assessment that tells you where your organisation actually stands. Names change; substance endures.
2
The Core Principles of Industry 4.0
The eight principles that define a genuinely smart factory — from the convertible line to the socially intelligent organisation where gut feel and data reinforce each other.
Videos in this chapter
Part II: The Software-Defined Assembly Line
2 chapters
3
The Software-Defined Assembly Line
The diagnosis: why most digital projects fail, what the Fragmentation Tax is costing you, and what the Golden Roof on a Shack really means for your line.
4
The Assembly Line Operating System: How It Works
The solution: one data model, three verbs — Plan the Work, Run the Work, Prove the Work. How a no-code environment lets engineers configure the line without writing a line of PLC code.
Part III: What the Foundation Unlocks
3 chapters
5
Good Data = Good AI
The three families of AI on the shop floor — vision, prediction and prescription, language — and where they ultimately lead: agents you can question in plain language, and a game master that reasons over them all.
Videos in this chapter
5.1How AI Computer Vision is Revolutionizing Manufacturing Efficiency
5.2Eliminate mechanical systems with virtual devices
5.3AI virtual devices running on the edge on Nvidia GPUs
5.4Teaching the Line to Predict and Prescribe
5.5Demo gone wrong
5.6AI Factory Agents That Speak Every Language (Real Manufacturing Use Case)
5.7Talk to Tom
5.8Many little AIs and one game master (playing noughts and crosses)
6
Empowering Frontline Workers
Google Maps for the operator. How good guidance, VR training, and AI vision lower the barrier to skilled work — and why the developing world's abundant labour is an asset, not a problem to automate away.
Videos in this chapter
7
Augmenting Lean and Six Sigma with Digital Technologies
Why Lean and Six Sigma do not compete with Industry 4.0 — they are supercharged by it. What value-stream mapping and root-cause analysis look like when the data foundation is clean.
Part IV: Implementation and the Road Ahead
2 chapters
8
Your Digital Transformation Journey
The five obstacles that actually block scale, the quick wins that pay for themselves, and a practical roadmap for getting from where you are to where you want to be.
9
Conclusion
Where the argument lands: a factory that monitors, learns, and increasingly decides for itself — and an honest look at what physical AI means for the factory floor, and what comes next.
Appendices
3 chapters
A
The Industry 4.0 Toolbox
A grounded guide to the tools — VR, AR, cobots, additive manufacturing — with an honest assessment of where each earns its place and where the hype runs ahead of reality.
B
Deep Hardware Integration
The technical layer: the ODEX IT/OT bridge, the three-layer architecture, and how the data model talks to any vendor's PLC. For the engineers who need to understand the plumbing.
C
Video Guide
Every video in the book, listed against the chapter it belongs to — the same set collected in the video hub here.