Production 4.0 — The Transformation Toward the Intelligent Factory
As the leading provider of vacuum technology, Schmalz supports its customers on the journey to smart production.
Experts agree that in the future, all companies in the competitive international market must embrace Production 4.0. Companies have to lay the foundations for future development and prepare for networked production. In the next generation of factory, people, machines and resources will communicate. Highly individualized products are produced in a highly flexible and resource-efficient manner. Customers and business partners are an integral part of the value creation processes.
Yet, there is still a long way to go until this vision becomes a reality. Schmalz has already taken steps to support its customers with innovative and future-proof vacuum solutions. Our work was focused on intelligent process communication long before everyone started talking about the “industry of Things.” In 2008, we introduced the world's first vacuum generators with an IO-Link interface in preparation for Production 4.0. Today, we are the first manufacturer to combine sensor and actuator functions in an Industry 4.0-compatible vacuum switch.
All our efforts and endeavors have one common goal: Through intelligent vacuum solutions, we want to help our customers to make their production processes more productive, efficient and flexible in order to increase their competitiveness.
