A Place-Based View on Industry 4.0 in Local Productive Systems

A growing debate in academic fields and in broader contexts concerns nowadays the impending fourth technological revolution, and the emergence of digitally augmented productive processes and product-service systems. Those routes of application, often grouped under the umbrella-title of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), raise great challenges on manufacturing places in advanced economies. Some windows of opportunity for a “manufacturing renaissance” seem to open up. However, in some areas these challenges relate to loss of old skilled jobs and crisis of small traditional firms that could be substituted just by low quality activities subservient to I4.0 systems led by big-tech monopolies. This paper illustrates reflections and cases on the possible relations between technological change and a manufacturing renaissance in local productive systems of economically advanced regions. According to an approach that we labelled “Industry 4.0 Plus” (I4.0+), new technologies should embed in organizational and social innovations at local and trans-local levels helping rerouting to models alternative to big-tech polarising solutions. The alternative models could trigger renewed bases for local manufacturing specialisations, cross over sectoral boundaries, and address societal and environmental problems.