Are We Ready for Industry 4.0?

With tomorrow’s smart machines needing smarter humans, SHU’s engineering department has it covered.

From the fall 2025 issue of Sacred Heart University Magazine

Key Highlights

• The Fourth Industrial Revolution is transforming manufacturing through advanced technologies, smart factories and interconnected systems
• According to SHU engineering director Tolga Kaya, the most significant shift is not technological—but human, requiring workers to adapt as machines assume more production tasks
• Manual assembly of microscopic components is becoming impossible for humans, making automation essential

Experts say the Fourth Industrial Revolution, or Industry 4.0, heralds radical technological advancements in manufacturing, leading to the smartest factories, supply chains and business operations the world has ever seen. But the most significant transformation may be how humans adapt to these changes.

In his book The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab, the founder and former executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, noted that whether these tech changes lead to new jobs for all and greater prosperity, bring about massive unemployment or achieve something in the middle, the solution for this uncertainty is a plan for how humanity weathers the transition.

“The days of a human taking one part and then another part and plugging them together are going away,” says Tolga Kaya, a professor in the School of Computer Science & Engineering and director of Sacred Heart University’s engineering program. The parts have become too small—microscopic. The assembly is unerringly precise. No human can manually build the tiny computers that power everything from smartphones to jumbo jets, let alone perform quality control. Machines will increasingly take over assembly and production.

“So, what is that person going to do?” Kaya asks. “We need to evolve. This revolution is also a human evolution.”

From training the next generation to providing existing workers with upskilling opportunities, SHU is at the leading edge of preparing tomorrow’s manufacturing workforce. Recently, Kaya was selected for a Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology (CCAT) fellowship in digital transformation. It’s one of the first in the country to bridge education with industry’s future needs. And beginning in fall 2026, SHU’s new Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering will join the existing computer engineering and electrical engineering programs. All three disciplines will be integral to Industry 4.0, Kaya says.

Tomorrow’s manufacturing will be an intricate system, reliant on cloud computing, data analysis, statistical modeling and prediction, global networks and other technologies that haven’t yet been invented, Kaya says.

Future Factories: SHU’S engineering curriculum prepares students to harness the AI-driven systems reshaping how products are designed, built and tested.

“It’s really already happening, but tomorrow’s ‘smart factories’ will have many machines doing their own thing and a few workers there to make sure all is going well,” he explains. “But there will be a huge crew of people off the manufacturing floor, in front of their computers in the plant and all over the world, programming, monitoring and adjusting the manufacturing process.”

Multiple factories, companies and employees will be as linked as the machines, thanks to the interconnectivity and interoperability of systems and devices created and designed by engineers. Before an MRI machine is made, a plane is built, a solar cell is integrated into a solar panel or a microchip is created, humans will have tasked machines with what they need to know—from purchasing the material to designing and creating the parts to assembling them and testing the final product.

Connected through the Internet of Things—the digital network of devices and machines that can “talk” to each other and exchange information—these machines will use artificial intelligence and other tools to crunch data, analyze patterns and solve problems at speeds that human methods cannot reach. Still, Kaya says, humans will be very much a part of this new reality, valued for their adaptability and flexibility in designing and programming the systems and software to keep up with continually changing, data-driven manufacturing.

“Sacred Heart’s engineering students will start with these Industry 4.0 concepts embedded into their curriculum,” Kaya says. “We have industry partners who are already contributing to the curriculum content, so they will be truly educating tomorrow’s decision-makers.”

Ever since the First Industrial Revolution, some 265 years ago, when machine manufacturing won out over manual labor and human and animal power transitioned to steam power, humans have continually refined how products are manufactured, goods are transported, products are sold and communications are delivered.

Given that the School of Computer Science & Engineering is housed within the Jack Welch College of Business & Technology, Kaya notes, engineering students can easily branch out and take courses in various business disciplines, such as finance, to gain a more comprehensive view of the future of manufacturing and ensure their part in it.

“We’ve been all about efficiency and improvement for centuries, but now we have the opportunity to make ten- to twentyfold improvement instantaneously,” Kaya says. “We need global engineers and critical thinkers working alongside talented businesspeople and data scientists to push the limits.”