Exploring the impacts of industry 4.0 from a macroscopic perspective

Abstract

Industry 4.0 is a great opportunity and a great challenge for enterprises. Nowadays, how to adjust the strategy according to the new situation to deal with the opportunities and challenges brought by Industry 4.0 is a hot topic. The paper investigates what is Industry 4.0 and compares the different fourth industry revolution programs in various countries and takes advantage of bibliometric to investigate which technologies play an important role in Industry 4.0. What is more, the status quo, challenges and development directions faced in various fields in the industrial 4.0 era are elaborated. The paper not only combs the research direction for researchers, but also presents the status quo of practical application for enterprises. The paper contributes to showing a leading role for theory and practice of industry 4.0.