Sustainable Development Challenges and Risks of Industry 4.0: A literature review

Industry 4.0 brings many advantages for the industry, but the implementation of this new paradigm implies new challenges for companies and risks for society, which must be analyzed in depth in order to avoid any type of social, environmental or economic negative impact to the people, profit, and planet. In the present article, an exploratory analysis was carried out based on the new technological advances that have made the Fourth Industrial Revolution a reality. On the other hand, there was an analysis based on the different challenges that companies would face with the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies like Internet of Things at the time of its implementation, as well as the possible internal and external risks that such implementation will represent. A short review of the industrial revolutions through years is presented. Regarding the challenges, the economic investment that companies will have to make and the time it will take for companies to adopt those new technologies were the most relevant. Regarding the risks, the unemployment generated by the implementation of new technologies and the vulnerability of the data due to its manipulation and the interconnection of the devices were the most relevant. In conclusion, the interconnection of devices can allow a more efficient management of the factory and a generation of large amounts of data, but in the other side a socially responsible factory together with the corporate social responsibility strategies of these companies should not be affected in order to continue contributing to the sustainable development of the planet.