Leg 7. From Auckland to Itajaí (XI). Finished.
Team Brunel and Dongfeng are fighting to be the winner of Leg 7. But to my favor, the wind is almost null at the moment. I hope I can use this no breeze time to my advantage. The air velocity has dropped to 3-4 knots and I am really excited to see Itajai shore too. Look how close they are to the shore:
Let´s start. Here we are at the moment:
During the Leg 7, we covered several topics of new and emerging importance for all of us. We understood that the Industry 4.0 is not only a term which will be applied to manufacturing per se, but it is a term which shows the next era of a new economic model for our society. Industry 4.0 has been originated in Germany, and it is “the current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. It includes cyber-physical systems, the Internet of things and cloud computing”. Industry 4.0 intends to create what has been called a “smart factory”.
Industry Evolution, by Deloitte
We learned that Industry 4.0 is going to affect the model of the economy, and there is a lot of work for economists at the moment. All the top consulting houses in the world are trying to bring solutions on how to implement Industry 4.0, without testing the waters with innovative prototypes and see the evolution of those solutions over the next generations. My advice is to slow down. We can ruin a whole Generation Z if we don´t do the things properly.
Education is the best competitive advantage for Industry 4.0. A model of Education which has to be tested before any implementation. This will take time. Many years (probably if we want to do it right, my own expectations of one generation (20-30 years), are insufficient, and it may happen that we will require two or three generations to design, repair, adjust and implement the new education model for Industry 4.0).
Once we have a right model of education, the best thing we can do is to test the Industry 4.0 fundamentals in a specific community or city from one of the poorest countries in the world, starting by education and training, and see what will be the impact on it over the next 20 to 30 years over that society. I wonder what country would accept to be the next guinea pig? It takes at least a generation to see results.
The most important thing we can learn from Leg 7: We are initiating a new economic system which has to fix and repair what the last Industry 3.0 created: We have inherited 3 Billion people in the world which live with less than US$ 2.50 per day. This is the main reason why we have to create the conditions to initiate Industry 4.0 with the right model, the right speed (not in the Southern Ocean please), and we also need to understand that sailing from Auckland to Itajai, can set us up to become the top winner, or we can lose our best sailors (which will not ever be replaced). Again, This is just my personal opinon. If we rush into Industry 4.0 at high velocities of 40 knots, we may be hurt or damaged (as Vestas 11th and MAPFRE) or in the worst scenario we will be forced to retire from leg 7 as it happened with SHK-Scallywag.
Don’t confuse my opinion please. I believe the capitalism has to evolve. I have seen proposals such as the Shared Value Capitalism… But this is just one prototype which still has to be tested by one generation. My intuition is telling me we need to evolve beyond the technology. It is the economic model which needs an evolution…. Trust me, I believe in the good things of the capitalism. But maybe it is time to evolve to an ethical capitalism to fix the big problem of 3 Billion People in the world living with less than US$2.50 per day. By now, after one semester of sailing, you can understand why Generation Z or the next Guinea Pigs Generation will be in troubles, if Babyboomers, Gen X and Millenials do not unite all together to repair the mainsail. Team MAPFRE did it. No matter if they will arrive as the last of this Leg, but they will arrive in one piece and safe to Itajai.
This is all for today. I am exhausted. Leg 7 is done on my side.
Thank you.
8:21 am CST- San Salvador
Eleonora Escalante Strategy 