Probably the biggest change will come from the wider use of additive or 3D manufacturing. Knocking out a billion widgets per second in China won't change overnight but 3D printing locally for certain components is already happening.

I agree that distributed manufacturing via 3D manufacturing is set to upset how countries operate today. It will be at a countrywide level in addition to upsetting industries. As supply chains can be integrated within a short distance of the plant , supply chains will be reduced to nothing and countries can keep their manufactured goods internal without importing. Raw materials will be the main import left.

 The term Industry 4.0 stands for the fourth industrial revolution which is defined as a new level of organization and control over the entire value chain of the life cycle of products; it is geared towards increasingly individualized customer requirements. Industry 4.0 is a current research topic in the field of production engineering. One common characteristic of Industry 4.0 is decentralization which can be implemented by a decentralized production control. Industry 4.0 is still visionary but a realistic concept which includes Internet of Things, Industrial Internet, Smart Manufacturing and Cloud based Manufacturing. Industry 4.0 concerns the strict integration of human in the manufacturing process so as to have continuous improvement and focus on value adding activities and avoiding wastes.

Key technologies such as the IoT, cyber-physical systems (CPSs), cloud computing, big data analytics (BDA), and information and communications technology (ICT) will be used to enable intelligent manufacturing.