The period we are going through is the scene of certainly profound social, economic and political phenomena, destined to decisively mark the near future in the context of an increasingly growing globalization of competition, despite the neo-protectionist impulses on both sides of the Atlantic.
Even industrial activities, in their organisational, technological and relational components, are fully affected by the changes taking place and forced to review their logic and paradigms. We have now entered the fourth industrial revolution.
The first industrial revolution took place with the introduction of the steam engine and the mechanized loom, the second with mass production and Taylorist work organization, the third with lean production and highly automated systems.
The fourth industrial revolution, initially known as "Industry 4.0", owes its name to a 2011 initiative by American and German large companies and research centers, subsequently adopted by their respective governments (and now with the "Industry 4.0" plan ” by Minister Calenda also by the Italian Government), with the aim of increasing the competitiveness of manufacturing and service industries through the growing integration of “cyber-physical systems” (cyber-physical systems or CPS) in industrial and logistic processes.
In this context, the "Factory 4.0" will be increasingly governed by a system in which intelligent machines connected to the Internet will be included in the jobs performed by human beings: the assembly line will be replaced by a network of machines that not only produce more and with fewer errors, but they can autonomously modify the production schemes according to the external inputs they receive even remotely, and in the meantime maintain a high efficiency.
Moreover, even if the "Factory 4.0" will increasingly be a capital intensive space, it does not imply the exclusion of human intervention: far from it.
The real-time availability of huge masses of information will make it possible not only to monitor the flow of demand (adjust production levels, reduce lead times, optimize inventories), but also to completely rethink business models.
At the heart of the communication flows that draw on Big Data, the Internet of Things, the Cloud, will remain precisely the ability, quality and vision of people: they will be asked for an ever-increasing contribution of intelligence and active participation.
The importance of workers will lie even more in becoming the engine of knowledge-generating processes: they will be the field of diffusion of collective knowledge in which to shorten the supply chain between research, design, production, distribution and consumption.
Never before has the industrial revolution, which is by now a permanent revolution, configured itself as a cultural challenge that broadens the knowledge base and participation in production processes to workers, effectively shifting the organizational culture of the division between those in charge and those who execute towards cooperation and sharing of "knowledge" between managers, technologists and workers, consequently promoting continuous improvement and increased productivity.
In this process, the empowerment of workers and their creative contribution become crucial. A sense of responsibility and involvement which, if they must naturally mature on an individual level, cannot however fully develop except in a context of trust guaranteed by collective forms of participation.
In this regard, the recent signing of the metalworkers' contract is significant.
The new CCNL for metalworking, as well as giving continuity and solidity to industrial relations, represents, in the words of Fabio Storchi, President of Federmeccanica, a "first and very important step towards a real cultural renewal and we did it together with the union".
In fact, the new Contract addresses those areas, previously left uncovered by collective bargaining, which most interest workers and which can only be developed in a logic of participatory relations between the company and the trade unions.
In addition to the interventions on corporate welfare (free health care for workers and their families, strengthening of supplementary pensions, flexible benefits, simplification and improvement of the institutions connected to the work-life balance), the Agreement above all enhances the pillars of involvement and of participation in “Fabbrica 4.0”: productivity wages and continuous training.
While on the one hand the role of the national contract in hedging inflation has been confirmed, albeit ex post year on year and no longer ex ante, on the other hand the principle has been strengthened that "fresh money" can only be distributed with the wage/productivity exchange in company bargaining, that is, in the place where wealth is created.
The second qualifying aspect of the Contract is the recognition of the subjective right of all workers to training, functional to their cultural growth, which will serve in particular to recover the gap in digital knowledge and skills.
The metalworkers, companies and trade unions have therefore launched the challenge for the renewal of industrial relations. It is now up to Confindustria and the trade union confederations to define the "Pact of the Factory" which, also thanks to the aforementioned government plan, could finally outline the path to recovery.
Our country is still the second manufacturing country in Europe, and at least it should remain so.
