In 2011, 10 years ago, the term Industry 4.0 made its debut at Hannover Messe in Germany. Since then, this new industrial era has conveyed concepts and technological innovations that revolutionized the global manufacturing sector.
Let’s see the main milestone of Industry 4.0 from 2011 to 2021.
2011 – Release of the article “Industry 4.0: towards the fourth industrial revolution with the Internet of Things.”
The VDI (Association of German Engineers, including Dr. Kagermann, Dr. Wolfgang Wahlster of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence and Dr. Wolf-Dieter Lukas of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research) publishes an article entitled “Industrie 4.0: Mit dem Internet der Dinge auf dem Weg zur 4 industriellen Revolution” shortly before the 2011 Hannover Messe Fair.
2012 – ESA Energy is born
Energy efficiency is now recognized as a fundamental component of Industry 4.0. Thus was born ESA Energy for the production of hardware and software solutions for energy management and consumption monitoring.
2013 – ESA launches Esaware
In response to the growing need for technological transformation according to the IIoT, ESA develops Esaware, a family of innovative and sustainable HMIs and IPCs with the SCADA Crew as interface. These solutions for industrial automation stand out for their minimalist and ecological design, both from an aesthetic and functional point of view. The products are in fact designed to ensure simple and safe use and to last with minimum environmental impact.
2015 – Acquisition of Elcon Group
ESA acquires Elcon Group s.r.l. and enters the CNC and Motion sector. The goal is to create increasingly autonomous systems to facilitate the circulation of data within the plant to optimize work and increase efficiency.
2016 – ESA enters the drives and motors market
ESA continues to invest synergistically in the development of technological solutions for Industry 4.0. In this case, the new know-how concerns the production of drives for electric motors. With this move, ESA can now provide its customers an increasingly open, dynamic and complete production context, from visualization and control to drives & motors.
2016 – Italian National Industry 4.0 Plan
Following other European countries, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development publishes the National Industry 4.0 Plan. The package includes a series of tax incentives and concessions to promote business investments in technological innovation, both in capital goods and in human capital.
2020 – ESA’s debut in robotics
Robotics takes over as one of the leading innovations of Industry 4.0, with the number of active industrial robots constantly increasing. In 2020, ESA joins in and starts designing and developing industrial robotic automation solutions.
2021 – LUMIA is launched
10 years after the conceptualization of the fourth industrial revolution, ESA celebrates with the launch of a new product line that marks the peak of research in the field of automation 4.0. In fact, LUMIA proposes a completely new concept of HMI, visualization, and control, in a modular format to guarantee the highest level of customization.