Industry 4.0 and Object-Oriented Development: Incremental and Architectural Change

Industry 4.0 in manufacturing is about combining cyber-physical systems with industrial automation systems. This integration of systems so different in nature aims to create context-aware factories in which people and machines are in real-time alignment. This paper examines the change processes triggered by Industry 4.0 from a conceptual perspective. We find that the observed patterns of change are not novel but have a lot in common with the paradigmatic shift in software development from structured to object-oriented development. The latter approach features to be incremental in the production phase and architectural in the product and process design phase. We argue that Industry 4.0 will be equally paradigmatic and mind-set changing for architects and engineers as to crafting production processes and creating products for the future