Keywords

1 Introduction

Technology is always a key which defines the human civilization [1]. Until now, the human civilization goes through three revolutionary changes. The first revolution was made by the agricultural technologies. With these technologies, new era of the human civilization had begun with settlement. The second revolution was made with the steam engine. The technology changed the source of power from animals to machines. Industry had begun with the power of engines. The era of industry has its own revolutions [2]. With the help of mass production system such as conveyor belt, the aspect of industry had changed drastically. When the material prosperity was satisfied, the human race moves to the next level of civilization. The next revolution was born from the desire for the information. The right to access the origin of knowledge had been a privilege of the upper class citizen. Education, which was the way of acquiring knowledge was regarded as a ladder of success. However, technology changed this rule. After the Internet was invented, information and knowledge were open to the public. More than 20 years passed since the last revolution which was made by information technologies. It is a time to prepare for the next revolution. It is called as ‘the fourth wave’ following the Neolithic revolution, industrial revolution, and information revolution [3]. It is also called as ‘the fourth industrial revolution (industry 4.0)’ following steam-powered engine, mass production system, and information technology [4]. According to the world economic forum, technologies are converged with not only societies but also each human in industry 4.0 [2]. Therefore, technologies which make the convergence possible become the core technologies.

In this paper, we choose five technologies which are 3D printing, artificial intelligence (AI), big data, cloud computing (CC), and internet of things (IoT) as core technologies for industry 4.0. Then analyze the current trends of these five technologies to figure out the current researching situation and prepare for improving the national capability to be a leading country in the era of industry 4.0. To analyze the technology trends, we collected data from Elsevier’s Scopus database [5] using SciVal Analytics Engine [6]. The quality of researches are compared with three criteria which are the number of published journal, the number of citation, and field weighted citation impact (FWCI).

2 Five Technologies of Industry 4.0

2.1 3D Printing

In the era of mass production, Pareto principle, which means that roughly 80% of the effects comes from 20% of the causes, reigns the world [7]. To maximize the efficiency of production system which is the originated from the economies of scale, variety should be sacrificed. However, 3D printing technology successes in expelling the Pareto principle. Small quantity batch production can be realized with low cost [8]. Table 1 shows the trends of researches on 3D printing technology.

Table 1 Trend of 3D printing research results during last 5 years
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2.2 Artificial Intelligence

AI is a technology for representing, reasoning, and managing knowledge. Smartness can be achieved in various services with AI [9]. In order to be smart, services should be able to recognize the context of the environment where they are deployed, and astronomically decide what to do in the given situation to achieve the given goal. Main topics in AI are enhancing knowledgebase (KB) by symbolic and statistical approaches, reasoning implicit knowledge from KB, and applying KB to make services intelligent. Table 2 shows the trends of researches on AI technology.

Table 2 Trend of AI research results during last 5 years
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2.3 Big Data

Big data is a fundamental technology for realizing AI. In order to enhance the knowledge by machine learning methods, the database where the patterns are hidden should be provided. Depending on the scale of data, more reliable and explicit knowledge can be extracted. Big data is a method for collecting and managing data in large scale [10]. This technology is similar to data warehouse except that the data warehouse focuses on the architecture of data to make it reliable, accessible, and believable, whereas big data focus on the way of storing and managing the volume, variety, and velocity of data. Table 3 shows the trends of researches on big data technology.

Table 3 Trend of big data research results during last 5 years
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2.4 Cloud Computing

CC is based on the distributed computing and client-server architecture [11]. The cloud services work as server systems. Therefore, the service users can get their working environment regardless of time and place while they are online. However, as the number of the service users increases, the computing load for servicing them also increases. Therefore, cloud services are composed of distributed computing objects. The way of managing distributed computing objects to provide reliable services to massive users is the main research topic in CC. Table 4 shows the trends of researches on CC technology.

Table 4 Trend of CC research results during last 5 years
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2.5 Internet of Things

IoT is a method of embedding and managing communication capability into computing objects [12]. Therefore, the way of managing networks such as registration of computing objects, dynamic configuration of the network architecture, providing securities in data communication, and managing limited resources of each computing objects are the main topic to be researched in IoT. Table 5 shows the trends of researches on IoT technology.

Table 5 Trend of IoT research results during last 5 years
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2.6 Research Results of Major Nations

The quantity of five technologies have been increased constantly for last 5 years. Pareto principal is still valid in the quantity of researches. As shown in Table 6, the number of researches from top 9 nations holds 80% of the whole researches. USA is second to none not only in quantity but also in quality. Chain is in the second place, and the research of USA and Chain occupies over 50% of the total amount of the research result. In Asia, China, India, Japan, and Korea are in the leading group of the selected technologies. The ratios of highly qualified researches, which are in Top 1 percentiles, over total quantity of China, India, Japan, and Korea are 1.11, 0.62, 1.40, and 1.29%, respectively.

Table 6 Research results of top 9 nations for 5 technologies from 2012 to 2016
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3 Public Policy for Supporting 5 Technologies in Korea

As shown in Table 6, technologies are attached to the nation where technologies are invented. Because technologies requires abundance of resources, the governmental supports becomes the incubator where the technologies can be invented. The rank of countries in Table 6 is similar to the rank of the national economy. However, the strategic plan for managing the national resources can make the reversion that even the minor nation can overtake the major nations. Even though Korea is in the last rank in GDP and population [13], there is a possibility to overtake and lead the world.

National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) is a quasi-governmental organization established in 2009 as a merger of Korea Science and Engineering Foundation, Korea Research Foundation, and Korea Foundation for International Cooperation of Science and Technology [14]. The role of NRF is to provide supports for improving national capability in science and technology. Table 7 shows the number of projects and total fund size which are managed and supported by NRF. Therefore, the role of NRF is the key for Korea to promote its rank shown in Table 6.

Table 7 The number of projects and total fund size which are registered and managed by NRF from 2012 to 2016. The unit of fund size is KWR Billion
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4 Conclusion

In this paper, we select 3D printing, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing and internet of things as core technologies for industry 4.0. Then the trends of each technology are analyzed using statistical approach. The current research papers are mined from Elsevier’s Scopus database with selected keywords, and analyzed according to the quality of the result and the leading subject of the research.

From the trends analysis, the researches of the selected 5 technologies have been increased constantly and these tendency is predicted to be kept. There are 10 countries which lead these technology trends. The rank of these countries are similar to the rank of GDP. However, there is a possibility of upheaval in the rank. In industry 4.0, technologies are closely related and converged with societies. Therefore, to lead the technology trends for industry 4.0, government-level support is required. In order to expand the quantity of researches without losing the quality, managing and supporting the large-scaled research projects become the most significant fundamentals. Hence, the role of NRF can be the key of Korea to become the leading country in the era of industry 4.0.