The road from the current status of industrial production in general and steel production in special to the vision of a Smart Factory passes the steps of vertical, horizontal and transversal integration. These integration concepts will work on a set of key enabling technologies (KET) which are mainly driven by new developments in the field of Information and Communication Techniques (ICT). All together this describes the integrated intelligent manufacturing (I²M) concept. In ESTEP, the term “integrated intelligent manufacturing” was created long before in Germany Industrie 4.0 was launched. There is a very wide consistency between I²M and Industrie 4.0. |
Further information about the work of WG I2M can be found in the ESTEP highlights of 2016.