from Fortune 500 giants to revolutionaries, start-ups, all descending to showcase their vision for the future of manufacturing and industry

Launched in 1947 to boost the economic activity of post-war Germany

Hannover Messe has positioned itself as the leading edge of the country's industrial output

but organizers say this year represents a pivotal shift for innovation in manufacturing

an initiative the German government has termed industry 4.0

Well Hannover Messe is the worldwide most important show for industrial technology and energy technology

and with the main theme being integrated industry that's why the show is enjoying such a height right now

You've heard of the Internet of Things

but industry 4.0 transitions these same ideas from the consumer market to large-scale production lines

Of course you have your smart homes, you have your smart cars, and the next step is the smart factory

then that's gonna be the future of production

because products have to be produced more and more individual, more and more flexible

and that is only possible if you have IT in your production processes

A vision has given birth to the ultimate in smart manufacturing

this is Smart Factory, a production line unveiled at the Messe

to showcase what happens when every element of a production workflow moves online

Smart Factory is the factory consisting of smart elements, smart objects

that means that all the elements of the factory that means sensors, actors plus all of the parts itself also the people working there

are connected to the Internet and are a part of such a network in the factory

Led by the German government center for artificial intelligence

Smart Factory is more than just a factory

It's a united software platform

that connects modules from huge manufacturing mainstays like Phoenix Contact and Siemens to independent start-ups

individual modules that would typically not work together

we have standards so you can put things together

but you can also quickly rearrange all these things

because you always have the same standard so just plug and play

the system also allows production lines to be redeployed almost instantly by the manufacturer

or customized by a customer when they place an order

Everyone likes to have this individualized product and this means that

we have more and more to change our production systems in a very very short time

The Smart Factory's answer is this a tiny chip that travels with each individual product on the production line

identifying what it is, who the customer is, and triggering customization throughout the process

So how would something like this work?

The customer can choose his very own what he wants

which color he wants to have, which print he wants to have

for example and then this will be produced in these modules here

so what you see are the different production models and there are already the information of the customer is stored in this RFID chip

so now the RFID chip is really controlling the flow of objects in this line for example

each of these modules have been built by different companies

they are equipped by different technologies so different controllers different sensors and actors of all these companies

so here the customized information will be printed on this little cover here by this laser

and finally we go to quality control will show up over here

and the customer now can pick this up

The technology also lowers environmental impact grouping similar orders together

and powering off systems when they're not needed

and while the demo creates something as simple as personalized business card holders

the capabilities of the system run much deeper

take for example the smartphones which we produce - they have a lifetime of a couple of months only

and then we have to change something

we can apply the same idea to car production and any other production as well

But the rush to connect smarter factories is by no means a one-horse race

in April the US government announced funding for Digital Manufacturing Commons

a similar program led by a consortium US manufacturers

and similar projects are emerging from the east

I think everyone's under the pressure to move into this direction

and therefore I think a lot of things will change in the future and they will be able to follow these standards

but we have to be fast because other nations around the world are sometimes faster