A fundamental transition is taking place in the world of production. The real world and virtual reality continue to merge; modern information and communications technologies are being combined with traditional industrial processes, thereby changing the various areas of production. The experts are currently discussing these developments under the heading of “Industry 4.0”.

Festo views this transformation of production holistically from various perspectives, and is conducting research on new solutions and technologies together with partners from business and science.

Intelligent components
The trend is moving more and more towards individualised products. The small batch quantities and the large number of variants associated with this trend necessitate technologies which adapt themselves continuously to changing conditions. In the future, components in industrial systems will therefore have to be capable of adjusting to each other.

People interacting with technology
In addition to developing new technologies, it will also be necessary to clarify where people will be situated within the production process in the future, and how interaction between people and machines will take place. Within this context, Festo is intensively involved with the issue of training and equipping the upcoming generation for future production scenarios.

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