From Industry X to Industry 6.0: Antifragile Manufacturing for People, Planet, and Profit with Passion

Europe is in a need to re-invent itself in order to retain the 35 million industrial
jobs we still have in a fierce global race on competitiveness and productivity. This needs to happen in concerto with our bold ambitions towards green and digital transition. Digital technologies around us will power Europe´s quantum leap to Industry 6.0 and introducing us into new heights of sustainability, prosperity, and happiness.

Industry 6.0 is defined in this paper as “Ubiquitous, customer-driven, virtualized, antifragile manufacturing”. It is characterized on one hand by customer-centric, highly customized lot-size-1 thinking, on the other hand by hyper-connected factories, with dynamic supply chains, where data flows across domains. These also change the role of human as a production worker, as they become part of the interconnected environment and need to handle the digital, optimized production. While we already have strengths that prepare us to lead the next industrial revolution, we also have serious shortcomings. We need to raise Europe´s level of ICTknowledge across all industries; we need multidisciplinary research, development and innovation, and a strategy for long-term public commitment and significant investments.

This paper represents the thinking among some of the brightest minds in Finland and it is purposed to give food for thought and open new interactions for collaboration across Europe. Humanity is in trouble and therefore we need to join forces not just here in Europe but globally.