Six ways Web 3.0 impacts WCM 4.0

Figure: Relationship between Web 3.0 and WCM 4.0

Web 3.0 is a back-end revolution; it is a configuration of web data and links that improve the efficiency of finding, automation, integration and re-cycling of data across various platforms. It brings in new techniques for organizing content and new applications to create original information that makes it possible for employees, processes and equipment to collect, interpret and apply data in ways that can add meaning and structure to information where it didn’t exist before.

World Class Manufacturing 4.0 is a progressive model for optimizing manufacturing processes and systems through the use of advanced technology that heightens employee solutions, process lock-in and equipment optimization. The relationship between Web 3.0 and World Class Manufacturing 4.0 is that both rely on advanced technologies and data analytics to optimize processes and improve efficiency.

Web 3.0 uses artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms to analyze and understand user behavior, while WCM 4.0 uses similar technologies to optimize production processes and equipment. Both also rely on advanced automation technologies to improve efficiency and reduce costs, and both seek to create more personalized and immersive experiences for users and customers.

Webs 3.0 introduces an interactive and intuitive online experience by allowing machines and processes to understand and interpret data in a way that is meaningful to employees. Some of the benefits of web 3.0 in WCM 4.0 are; automation and streamlining of manufacturing processes thereby reducing the need for manual intervention and minimizing the risk for errors, it improves collaboration and effective communication within and between organizations thus enabling manufacturers to work together more seamlessly and effectively.

Web 3.0 enables manufacturers to improve vertical integration by making it easier to share data and information with customers, suppliers and other stakeholder’s thus increasing transparency and building trust. It enhances decision making in manufacturing through analytics and machine learning which enable a deeper understanding of operations thereby enabling them make informed decisions on how to optimize processes and improve efficiency. It also brings about sustainability as it helps manufacturers track and monitor their environmental performance, identify areas for improvement and reduce their impact on the environment.

Below are the six ways in which Web 3.0 impacts WCM 4.0.

1. Social Web

The social web is a web 2.0 feature which is a user centric network, based on an architecture of participation that reduces hurdles to cooperation and encourages users to share and generate content. However, this data is usually ill structured, very subjective and regularly of poor quality. The more this data is generated the harder it becomes for users to find relevant information.

Web 3.0 which is the intelligent web capitalizes on Web 2.0 collective knowledge in order to achieve its vision of a highly productive, customized and intuitive environment. Web 3.0 structures information in the social web in such a way that machines can read and understand, as much as people can, without much ambiguity. The social web enables WCM 4.0 to achieve the social manufacturing which reads the minds of consumers in the development of products so as to achieve the ultimate customization (Your name on a soft drink).

The social web assists WCM 4.0 to complement or replace traditional user research and surveys to allow frequent monitoring at a lower cost and higher accuracy through analysis of significant human communication patterns and behaviors across domains. Digital wearable, handheld devices and applications significantly improve the capacity to harvest this information.

In WCM 4.0 the social web offers manufacturers a platform to improve and optimize employee solutions, process lock-in and equipment optimization from the knowledge of external stakeholders and consumers. Social web analytics can be used to define specific action that improve a manufacturer’s products, maintenance practices, quality, safety, environment, energy, sustainability, marketing and people development strategies and tactics.

2. Semantic web

Machines can’t comprehend information the way the human mind does as such, headings, texts, links and other web 2.0 components don’t add value to computers. Without context, information on the internet is ambiguous to search engines. The semantic web is a network of linked data; it is responsible for, adding structure, labeling and adding meaning to data on the web so that software agents can use content easily and efficiently.

The semantic web uses tools such as metadata, Resource Description Framework (RDF), Resource Description Framework Schema (RDFS), Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI), Web Ontology Language (OWL), Sparql Protocol and RDF Query Language (SPARQL), Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Language (GRDDL), Semantic Annotations for Web Service Description Language (SAWSDL), Business Process Execution Language (BPEL), and Device Profile for Web Services (DPWS) etc.

The semantic web enables the retrieval of data from seemingly unmatched fields, finds new relationships and combines them to unravel new discoveries. The semantic web bring to WCM 4.0 web services such as; industry search engines, cataloging, data integration, resource discovery and classification, service orchestration and invocation, manufacturing process modeling, manufacturing research, intellectual property right descriptions, Inter-industry collaboration, manufacturing big data processing and knowledge management.

3. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines and software agents. This enables them to solve problems, manage knowledge, reason and plan, learn, communicate, perceive and perform activities in a cognitive and rational manner.

To achieve this, AI applies formalized symbolic logic, probabilistic reasoning, structured knowledge (graph, frames and related structures), knowledge organization and manipulation, matching techniques, organization and management, natural language processing, pattern recognition and processing.

AI empowers machines to work, operate and react just like man and make decisions based on real time activities. AI brings in the ability to understand manufacturing scenarios, analyze real time data, and give reactions accordingly through its cognitive function. AI use case in manufacturing revolves around these technologies; machine learning, deep learning and autonomous objects.

As such, AI delivers the following intelligence into WCM 4.0; smart factory, smart warehousing, smart manufacturing, smart production and smart supply chain. AI enhances multi-modal human machine collaboration through body motion, speech command and hand motion recognition. AI also enhances data analytics, improves efficiency, product quality and safety by capitalizing on digitization of manufacturing processes.

AI computer vision heightens quality assurance inspections, safety, environmental and sustainability practices, AI heuristic classification improves preventive and predictive maintenance, AI real-time monitoring and gamification improves employee solutions, process lock-in and equipment optimization. Machine learning (ML) and Neural Networks (NN) minimizes the bull-whip effect in supply chains, they have also been used to automate and optimize procurement processes.

4. Ubiquity

Ubiquity is a function of Web 3.0 that enables information and content to be linked and accessed in a universal standard with zero latency; this has given additional applications interoperability to analyze the growing amount of data as more devices and products are connected to the internet. This has enabled the projection of unparalleled insights, efficiencies and effectiveness in the manufacturing industry.

Web 3.0 ubiquity has provided a 360-degree view of manufacturing assets as it leverage on technologies such as wearables, IIOT and cloud. This allows for equipment and technologies to merge hence enabling faster and higher amounts of information to be computed.

Web 3.0 is transforming the traditional distinction of space and time and introducing a decentralized and non-linear manufacturing experience of ubiquifacturing an edge assortment of syncretic equipment and polymorphic processes in WCM 4.0. Ubiquifacturing is alive to the fact that supply chains are getting complex by the day, service networks cut across organizations, locations and information systems. In its basic form ubiquifacturing is seen in additive manufacturing.

5. Spatial Web

The spatial web transfers digital information from screens into the existing space and makes it inseparable from the physical world. It does this through the growth and convergence of enabling technologies such as virtual reality, augmented reality and extended reality (VR, AR & XR), advanced networking (5G), geolocation, computer vision, haptic technology, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), digital ledger technology (blockchain), 3D digital twins, artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The spatial web is made up of three layers; one, the physical layer which is the world as we currently know it through the five senses, two, the digital information layer which is the geolocated digital mapping of the physical world and three, the spatial interaction layer which merges the physical and digital interaction layer through next generation interfaces such as smart glasses.

In WCM 4.0 the spatial web is driving significant competitive advantage by vastly improving intuitive interactions with data which improve contextualized experiences for both internal and external customers thus offer opportunities for employee solutions on communication, training material and efficiency.

6. Decentralized technology

Decentralization is the foundation of Web 3.0 which aims to decentralize the control of information and manufacturing. Decentralization eliminates middlemen by allowing users and equipment to gain full ownership of their data and products. Decentralization is achieved through zero trust and zero permission mediums which require no controlling nodes to operate. This allows interaction in the absence of third parties and bypassing of governing authorities.

The building blocks of decentralized technologies include; distributed ledgers i.e. blockchain, smart contracts, decentralized computing and Non Fungible Tokens (NFT’s). In WCM 4.0 decentralized technology can be witnessed in edge and server-less computing in factory automation where blockchain is disseminated for large-scale, reliable and plant wide synchronization. In web 2.0 this function is centralized in ERP’s and MES systems. IN WCM 4.0 decentralized technologies virtualizes and flattens the hierarchical structure of legacy automation systems.