Abstract

Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet, Smart Factory, Print 4.0, etc., are topics surrounded by a great deal of discussion in the (graphic arts-) industry. Although there are many interpretations of the exact meaning of these terms, the similarity between most of them is system integration and process automation, controlled by some kind of top level intelligence, making decisions so as to maximize the overall efficiency. For instance, sensors in devices and assembly lines capture the information of the current state. This information is transferred to an intelligent controller or management application. Controllers and management applications make decisions on computing based on the current and historical state information. The result of the computations are decisions which lead to some kind of control information which, in turn, actively influences the behavior of the device or assembly line: