Steam engine. The first known device, powered by a steam, was described by Heron of Alexandria in the first century AD. It was first used in production only in 1698 by the military engineer Thomas Severi, who built a steam-powered fire engine. It took another century for water and steam engines to find application replacing human and animal labour. Thus began the First Industrial Revolution.

Electricity. With industrial development and rise of venture capital, the time frame between innovation and implementation has been shrinking. Scientific research into the properties of electricity, carried out in the 17th and 18th centuries, was put into practice in 1831 by Michael Faraday, who introduced the electric dynamo. Thus began the Second Industrial Revolution.

The third industrial revolution is usually referred to as a “digital revolution”. The widespread use of information and digital communication technologies in industrial production, became the cornerstone of the post-industrial society. Another characteristic feature of this stage is robotisation and the development of production methods that reduce the participation of people in management. This period began in the 20th century, in the 70s and is associated with the names of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, who laid the foundation for universal computerisation and the creation of global technology companies. For the first time in the history of industrial development, physical assets were replaced by innovation and technology for creating business value. At the beginning of 2021 among the top 10 companies with the highest capitalisation, 9 were tech companies.

The fourth industrial revolution counts its start from a 2011 initiative led by businessmen, politicians and academics who identified “cyber-physical systems” as the key factor of increasing the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry. The characteristic features of Industry 4.0 are fully automated productions where all processes and changing external conditions are machine controlled. Cyber-physical systems create virtual copies of the physical factories to control operational processes and make decentralised decisions. These systems can be integrated into single network, interact with each other in real time, self-adjust and self-learn. Internet technologies play an important role in Industry 4.0 manufacturing, connecting machines, processing large quantities of data, and producing only management-level of information to people. Mass production is replaced by “smart factories” that can manufacture and deliver products to individual customers at lower costs.