What does Industry 4.0 bring to the printshop?

Industry 4.0 is the buzzword, but what does it mean? It is basically a global term used to describe the interaction of processes and machines to get to a more efficient production process. It is for all kinds of manufacturing processes, Tesla Car manufacturing is a good example of it, which is highly automated. 

What does it mean in the Graphic industry? As production means become more “intelligent”, it can perform task automatically when fed with the right data. That is the “command” part, however, we need also to monitor that production means. 

How long will it take to perform the task and what resources does it need, are the resources available?  To monitor and interact this intelligent production means, you require a management system (often a MIS [link MIS who is in control], or Production dashboard) and finally, you need feedback from your production means. It has to be able to report in real time the status of the production. That is the whole idea of Industry 4.0. In our industry, the JDF specifications are often used as the protocol to share the information (commands and feedback) since it has become the common interface also between different vendors. Is JDF the plug and play solution? Unfortunately, this not the case. For further information, please read our article JDF, where is the magic?