As the world is entering the new age of Industrial Revolution, advanced economies such as the United States, Germany and Japan are striving to lead the trend and are preparing to cope with new system of advanced technologies. Three countries have different strengths to achieve to promote new revolution, but they share common perspectives that the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4th IR) is the basis of the ‘Manufacturing Innovation’ or ‘Digital Manufacturing’. This study focuses on the 4th IR related policies of the three countries to make an implication for Korea to draw out its own policy for digital innovation/digital manufacturing. Even though differences exist in economic/social structure, industrial bases and technologies, it is important to analyze the 4th IR policies in three advanced countries as all their governments are striving to prepare strategies that promote economic growth in the future. Furthermore, the work focuses on the cooperating organizations of the academia, businesses and government such as Plattform Industrie 4.0.
  The second chapter “The Concept of Digital Economy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution” defines terminologies relevant to the 4th IR as the description of the 4th IR concept differs globally as there is no clear definition to it. IT revolution in the mid-90s followed by mobile platform technology led to a new ecosystem of “Digital Economy” or “Internet Economy”. Such evolvement developed the Internet of Things (IoT) technology, which is a critical component of the 4th IR, which connects mobility, home and factory to the Internet. Moreover, the national strategies of the 4th IR linked to the manufacturing, such as Germany’s Industrie 4.0 and the U.S. Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), are outlined with organizations and consortiums that are established as means of achieving 4th IR.
  The third chapter “The Fourth Industrial Revolution in the U.S.” emphasizes that the American government and businesses identify their own roles in achieving 4th IR in market based manner. The U.S. government did not set up the long-term strategy or roadmap for the 4th IR, but it is preparing the systems for the issues that emerge from the technological revolution such as data security, autonomous driving vehicle and so forth. On the other hand, it is the American companies that create new business models in new technology fields such as big data analysis, cloud computing, augmented reality (AR) that can be adapted to manufacturing industry. In addition, multinational companies in the United States are gathering to form consortia in their interested areas to make their own system for 4th IR related activities and to cooperate at international level. Such liberal market economic movement in the United States is possible under the entrepreneurship that is rather unique in the world, which endlessly creates new companies that implement new ideas in the market. Various entrepreneurial activities from “Startup America Partnership” provides network to entrepreneurs with mentors and investors from corporate, venture capitals that lead to efficient manner to promote innovation.
  The fourth chapter “Germany’s Fourth Industrial Revolution” describes the background how Germany came with the idea of “Industrie 4.0” and policies that are in action. “Plattform Industrie 4.0 (Platform)”is the German organization that promotes Industrie 4.0 with various stakeholders in German society including governments, industrial associations, companies, academic institutions and others. This Platform acts as a mainstream organization for decision making in implementation of Industrie 4.0 policies which are supported by the working groups in various subjects such as standardization, research and innovation, data security, legal framework and labor. Furthermore, the Platform has mutual communication channel that efficiently delivers the messages and suggestions from the society level to governments and vice versa. Industrial associations takes important part as they gather and organize the suggestions from their members to convey to the government and as they act as a mediator that disseminate government policies to its stakeholders. In fact, Germany’s government and private players have analyzed their strengths to achieve the 4th IR prior to setting up Industrie 4.0 agenda as they also seek for cooperation domestically and internationally to promote their program. For example, German companies are cooperating to develop standardization model called “Reference Architecture Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0)” and are continuing to seek for opportunities to work with other countries, including government and corporate, to set it as one of international standard for digital manufacturing system. Moreover, Germany is considering small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a final piece to achieve Industrie 4.0 that its government and business societies are concentrating on its inclusive development.
  The fifth chapter “Japan’s Fourth Industrial Revolution” reviews the Japan’s manufacturing industrial policies that are linked to the 4th IR. Through government’s growth strategies 2017, Japanese administration selected Smart Health, Smart Mobility, Smart Supply-Chain, Smart City and Infrastructure and Fintech as five main areas to promote its future economic growth. Out of five areas, this study concentrates on Japan’s policies on Smart Manufacturing.
  Japan has brought some specific strategies to support its Smart Manufacturing industry from the cooperation among academia- businesses-government such as RRI, ITAC, and IVI. Its strategies include Smart Factory pilot project, test-beds, SME support, international standardization. However, Japan needs to overcome its closed technology-innovation system. Network between large companies and middle-sized companies is strong, but the cooperation between corporate and academia/public research institutions is rather weak, which can be shown through the fact that most core technology related patents are owned by American companies. Also, Japan’s inflexible labor market is another factor that hinders its 4th IR. The 4th IR technologies such as AI is expected to substitute human labor in the future, but many experts brings up the point that the such technologies will have limited impact in Japanese market due to its inflexibility of labor market. Therefore, Japanese government needs to encourage more flexibility in its labor system for its economy to integrate IT, robot and AI technologies fully to its market.
  This paper draws out four policy implications from the analysis made in the above sections. First, Korea needs a 4th IR promoting organization that is led under the cooperation among academia-businesses- government. The necessity of national controlling system or platform in the context of the 4th IR or new industry creation is discussed in Korea, but actual system has yet to be implemented. U.S., Germany and Japan cases show that the 4th IR is not led by the governmental support, such as financing and tax credits, to certain industries or corporate, but rather the government and businesses must set up a system together that they can cooperate to develop and share technology, which is mostly known as “Open Innovation” system. Moreover, such system should be supported by the government in setting up relevant regulatory framework and in making changes of the traditional system to adjust to the new environment under the 4th IR. Secondly, regulatory reform and system alignment should be come ahead of the 4th IR. For now, enacting a bill called “Regulatory Free Zone Special Law” seems to be the regulatory movement that can be take in action imminently in Korea. The bill is related to autonomous driving vehicles and drones where twelve states and Washington D.C. in the U.S. allowed test-driving of autonomous vehicles legally since June 2011 and Japan is on the legal process of permitting various sets of autonomous vehicles and drones test-driving in their National Strategic Special Zones. The same bill in Korea will also efficiently lead to the Big Data commercialization as no action was taken after the introduction of “Guidelines for De-identification of Personal Data”. Also, it is important to take a note of Japan’s movement as its government is focusing to support promoting the Big Data market as a part of developing Smart Manufacturing. Thirdly, support to the SMEs must be followed as a part of preparing the 4th IR era. The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy of Korea is promoting the installation and expansion of Smart Factories as a part of “Innovation in Manufacturing 3.0 Strategy”, but Korean government needs to clear out the way for its original SME support policies simultaneously. Korea has its SME policies such as IT solution support, automation of factories along with many others, but its linkage to the 4th IR related businesses seems to be rather ambiguous at this point. German government is striving to focus all its relevant SME policies to Industrie 4.0, which can be represented through its “Mittelstand 4.0” policy. Fourthly, the key point of the 4th IR is international cooperation. Korean government has its cooperation network with the U.S. and Japan in cyber security and SME support, but its limitation is noticeable when it is compared to the cooperation system among the advanced economies. Regarding the 4th IR, it is worth to note that Germany and Japan agreed to work together on nine areas which include cyber security, international standardization, regulatory reform, SME support, R&D, academia-businesses-government organization, human capital development in digitization, automotives, ICT in March 2017. Lastly, Korean government should put effort in supporting Korean ventures in advanced market such as Silicon Valley by connecting them to the local network in venture capital or accelerators.