Molding 4.0 - The Economics of an Injection Molding As-a-Service Business Model

During the last few years, the term Industry 4.0 or The Fourth Industrial Revolution, made its appearance and spread across industries. While it is accepted that the term broadly refers to a set of recent innovations with potential to disrupt value and process chains, the heterogeneity of actors involved contributes to a hazy definition of the phenomenon. In this work, Industry 4.0 is analyzed by analyzing into its influence on the plastics industry, with a focus on the injection molding technology. A new business model for the plastic industry is proposed, which fosters closer cooperation with suppliers and Internet-of-Things integration of equipment on the manufacturing company shop-floor. Automated quality control, predictive maintenance, and energy efficiency are identified as main levers of improvement, and associated cost savings are quantified for a total of 4.13Me. This study shows how the paradigm of Industry 4.0 is able to disrupt the industry by decreasing machine downtime and offering remarkable improvements in machine up-time. The present research aims to highlighting some of the opportunities for the plastic industry enabled by the implementation of an Internet of Things architecture.