Track: Industry 4.0 in African Context

Abstract

The Fourth Industrial Revolution poses significant challenges to manufacturing companies from the technological, organizational, and management points of view.  Industry 4.0 has created a new production model where robots are effectively used in production, this new production model has begun to change daily life, production, and working relations. However, the potential impacts of Industry 4.0 over the labor markets, manufacturing Industries, and energy consumption in Africa remain an understudied scholarly area. It is being evaluated that Industry 4.0 will lead to technological unemployment via changing the structure of employment and bring new structural problems in terms of unemployment and labor relations. This paper aims to explore the impact of Industry 4.0 in Africa and its state of readiness. The authors applied a qualitative case study design involving semi-structured interviews with practitioners from industry and reviewed existing literature, to analyze the impact of the fourth industrial revolution in Africa.  Company websites and annual reports were also examined to increase the reliability and validity of the results