Turkey should digitally transform its industry to increase competitiveness, Development Minister Lütfi Elvan said yesterday.
Elvan told that many big companies in the world do not have big buildings and factories, but they created more added value than factories with thousands of workers.
"We should certainly realize the industry's digital transformation to boost our competitive power," he said.
Stressing that developments in information and communication technologies had effects on every field, the minister said industry was one of the areas affected most by these developments.
He said new technologies and the use of big data have enabled people to understand what products are in demand and what particular country requests which products.
He noted that digital transformation's key factor is organization.
"Many huge companies in the world don't have big buildings and factories but they create more added value than factories where tens of thousands of people work. So we should certainly realize the industry's digital transformation to boost our competitive power," Elvan said.
"At first, our current industrial plants should be transformed. Secondly, new plants to be established should have an infrastructure that enables digital transformation in industry," he said.
He also pointed to the need for qualified people, saying that digital transformation in industry would be realized by people.
"Robots will be playing an increasingly greater role in production in the near future, but this transformation would not increase unemployment if a qualified workforce could be formed," he said. "We should organize training programs to train more qualified people, and departments in Turkish universities should be transformed and diversified accordingly."
The fourth industrial revolution, known as Industry 4.0, offers technology and digital-based working conditions, which may have negative effects on the workforce in the near future. The Industry 4.0 approach is the new production concept of the future, reflecting the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies.
