“Industrial Revolution” was a term coined in the late 1700s to describe France’s race to industrialize. What followed was a global movement that harnessed the power of water and steam to mechanize production. The economic impact was profound; triggering sustained wage, economic, and population growth.
The Second Industrial Revolution started in the 1870s when steel replaced iron, and electricity and petroleum fueled mass production. The Third Industrial Revolution emerged in the 1960s with the advent of the microprocessor, enabling digital technology to eventually automate production. The Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) was first described in 2011 as the era of internet-connected manufacturing, and a shift from “automated” process to AI-driven “autonomous” robotics.
These industrial revolutions profoundly advanced humanity. And while Industry 4.0 has permeated most market sectors, civil infrastructure is still stuck in the past, struggling to squeeze value out of blueprints conceived 120+ years ago during the Second Industrial Revolution.
In 2019, the World Economic Forum published a paper entitled Transforming Infrastructure: Frameworks for Bringing the Fourth Industrial Revolution to Infrastructure. This paper states: “The technological advances of the Fourth Industrial Revolution have fundamentally altered society in ways both seen and unseen. This digital transformation has changed how people live and work, and everything inbetween. One area of daily life, however, seems to be largely missing out on this revolution: infrastructure. It remains one of the least digitally transformed sectors of the economy.”
In reality our current energy, water, and transportation systems are on an unsustainable fiscal path. State of good repair backlogs are deepening, and costs to consumer are accelerating. Failure to reinvent them, from a clean sheet of paper, poses risk that affects every citizen.