Industry 4.0 is not about job losses - which appeared to be a major concern for Forum contributor Chew Kok Liang (Time to 'pause' Industry 4.0?, April 2).

Rather, it is about harnessing existing and developing technologies to eliminate human errors, provide safer work conditions, increase productivity and, more importantly, increase sustainability.

Using artificial intelligence, robotics and the Internet, we can optimise the manufacture of products, use fewer materials, make things lighter, compress the supply chain, minimise transportation of components and goods, and, at the same time, reduce carbon footprint.

It is also about democratising manufacturing: to be just-in-time, just-in-place and making just enough. It empowers smaller enterprises and smaller countries to be less reliant on the status quo.

For example, the Covid-19 outbreak has shown the need for instantaneous 3D printing of products such as face masks, devices to free hands from touching surfaces, and contraptions to increase the number of inlets for each ventilator.

Through distributed manufacturing and the cloud, consumers can download digital designs from an open design website and produce a product at a low cost through a distributed network of 3D printing services or a home printer.

Jobs will then be marshalled into areas of design, innovation and servicing of these processes, instead of the many tedious and repetitive processes which can be done by machines.

Tan Ming Jen (Prof)