Intelligent Amalgamation of Blockchain Technology with Industry 4.0 to Improve Security
Sumit Kumar Rana, Sanjeev Kumar Rana · Internet of Things · 2021
The first industrial revolution back in the mid-eighteenth century changed the production techniques and a new social-economic structure came into existence. This industrial revolution 1.0 increased production on a large scale. Then, in the early nineteenth century, industry 2.0 changed the production style by mass production assembly lines with electricity. Car production reached new heights by industry 2.0. Then, in the twentieth century, the third industrial revolution emerged, which partially automated the production by integrating electronics and information technology in it. First, programmable logical controller by the gift of industry 3.0 revolution. Now we are witnessing industry 4.0, which completely changed the process by digitization and connecting all the actors of the process by digital means. It is based on the fusion of the production process with information and communication technology. Physical systems after connecting with cyber power are more intelligent than ever before. The industrial production process can communicate with logistics units without human intervention. It is not easy for all businesses to adopt this industrial revolution. The challenges of adapting industry 4.0 for businesses are implementing the data transparency, decentralized access and decision-making process, interconnectivity of all the stakeholders, ease of data exchange, automation, traceability, and maintaining privacy and security of data being exchanged between the concerned peers of the network. These hurdles can be easily removed by integrating blockchain technology with the industry 4.0 approach. Blockchain is an emerging technology that will the inevitable component of all the technological advancements in the upcoming days. The most important factor for its consideration is the security provided by this technology. It uses cryptographic techniques and a consensus mechanism, which makes it secure and tamper-proof. Industry 4.0 can be integrated with blockchain to achieve unbreakable security for all the data which flows between different actors of the businesses. Other than security, this technology also provides transparency in data and a decentralized approach for a collaborative environment. In this chapter, various security preferences of industry 4.0 and how blockchain technology can be used to cater to the security requirements of this industrial revolution are discussed. Finally, after exploring challenges in the implementation of blockchain for industry 4.0, some suggestions are enumerated to guide researchers and companies for future development perspectives.