1. Introduction
The industrial revolution came with major changes to human lives from the first industrial revolution that started in England from the year 1750 to 1760 which changed the labor system from animal labor to machinery then human kind kept on evolving as they got to witness the second industrial revolution which is mostly associated with the discovery of electricity, this assignment will then focus on the third and fourth industrial revolution by discussing what is the third and fourth industrial revolution in order to distinguish the differences between the two revolutions and lastly discuss the effect that the fourth industrial revolution has on labor and work.
2. The Third Industrial Revolution
In the year 1969 the Third industrial revolution also known as industry 3.0 began this industrial system was driven by the advancement of technology which was derived from analog electronics and mechanical devices to aid the use of digital technology. For organizations, the Third industrial revolution changed production systems from manual labor to digitalized production that now uses information technology and electronics to support production. The third industrial revolution inventions include the invention of the internet, personal computers, and information and communications technology. Most of the communications systems such as smartphones and social media were produced during this revolution (Sihlongonyane et al, 2020).
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One of the predominant inventions under the third industrial revolution was the invention of robotics which was introduced in the production system with the aim of making them produce a quality product but under the third revolution such robotics didn't reject the involvement of humans in the production system but rather mankind was now working in collaboration with these robotics to produce quality products, even though some jobs were negatively affected by this invention as some people lost their jobs as their skills were replaced by these man-made machines but the man still maintained the highest intellect in the production system (Sihlongonyane et al, 2020).
3. The Fourth Industrial Revolution
The world witnessed the birth of the name Fourth Industrial Revolution in 2016 when it was first brought to light by the World Economic Forum in an annual meeting that was held in Davis but prior to this meeting the fourth industrial revolution had already originated from a high-tech project strategy by the government of Germany year 2011, the fourth industrial revolution is also known as industry 4.0 which is the transition from the third industrial revolution which is industry 3.0. The fourth industrial revolution introduced the cyber-physical production systems where organizational production processes are maintained through technology and using communication devices that can autonomously connect on their own (Koloszar L & Nemeth N, 2020).
The idea of the fourth industrial revolution is centralized around the notion of digital systems where machines can now interact with each other without the involvement of humans. Industry 4.0 is sometimes referred to as the age of the internet where the internet is present in almost all aspects of life and it is needed in order to survive in the 22nd century. The fourth industrial revolution is driven by the advancement of technology which has given rise to the internet of things, artificial intelligence such as google, drones, robotics, 3D printing, cloud computing autonomous vehicles, and nanotechnology, it is argued that such advancements are encouraged by companies as they bring in efficiency where organizations are able to produce more using fewer costs (Wadhid Y et al, 2019).
The production process under the fourth industrial revolution is autonomously run by devices where some are involved in the administration and some are under the production sector such machines autonomously operate themselves with little involvement of humans. The value chain in the production system is filled with machines that autonomously communicate with each other to guard the physical production processes, they create a work environment that is similar to the one that was previously filled with humans but now is mostly occupied by machines that can even take decentralized decisions that are based on self-organizational mechanism, this type of production system would then raise a question such what happens to humans that were normal occupying jobs in the production process ((Sihlongonyane et al, 2020).
4. Effect of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on Labour and Work
Many companies are established with the sole intention of maximizing profits in the highest efficient manner they can and in their operations, they cannot ignore the influence of the external world because they still need to maintain global competitiveness that is why many organizations are now opting for the implementation of the fourth industrial revolution systems in order to keep up with the gradually advancing technologies in the world whilst doing so the nature of work changes, for example previously businesses that are multinational corporations had to fly their managers to their headquarters in order to hold meetings but now with platforms like Zoom which is an online app that allows people to communicate online through video companies are opting to hold their meetings on such platforms (Kurt, 2019).
The fourth industrial revolution is changing production systems as they now operated via sensor systems that are referred to as intelligent factories that operate together with the internet things as they run the operations remotely and human involvement is mainly on the internet this means that a business can now autonomously run itself, whereby they'll be a machine that will be managing the operations and the other machines will be taking communication via the other to run the production, this then directly affect jobs firstly the job of a manager is replaced and jobs of people that were working in the production sector are replaced but for the employer, this means heshe will be generating more profits because it doesn't cost much to keep the machine business running as they are run by programs, unlike people that will require induction, training, and remuneration (Kurt, 2019).
The fourth industrial revolution absolutely eliminates the need for unskilled labor, in an organization, as most of the hard labor that requires power is replaced by machines that can do more work in less time. One of the inventions of the fourth industrial revolution is the drone and a drone has eliminated a number of jobs for instance when shooting a movie, the airplane was used to capture scenes from the sky but now a drone can be used to do such work meaning there won't be a need for a pilot to operate the plane and also there isn't a need for a cameraman that specializes on capturing scenes from the sky, two jobs were replaced by one device. Industry 4.0 is rendering a number of skills irrelevant or useless but it is also opening opportunities for new skills to emerge such as coding, software development, and robotics veterinary (Kurt, 2019).
5. Conclusion
In the world change is inventible and the way we interact will forever be evolving if we reject the advancements of technology that means there won't be any progress in our lives because if properly coordinated these technological advancements do make life easy but if not used right, they make it hard for others to live. The fourth industrial revolution shouldn't be used to replace humans but rather should be used as a tool that will work together with humans to make life easier. When choosing a career today it is wise that one should first reflect on what is happening in this era and the direction the world is going towards and chose a career that will be aligned with the needs of this era and not be ignorant about the fourth industrial revolution because it is here and changing the nature of work.
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