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166 IoT Applications — Value Creation for Industry
Fig. 3.5 Digital product memories in open-loop processes.
actively adapt its production sequence based on the current status of production
(Figure 3.5). Another feature is the capability to realize a tight monitoring
of events influencing the smart product. Basic elements are the memory itself
and a software component that allows accessing and interpreting the stored
information [9].
It is obvious that smart products can be implemented by applying an
embedded system to the product itself. However there are many scenarios
this is not really reasonable, either for cost, for size or for physical reasons
given by the production process such as heat treatment or electrical discharge
machining. Therefore the implementation often incorporates infrastructure
such as barcode- or RFID Readers and backend server systems enabling to
tag the product with robust and cheap items like bar- or data matrix codes or
RFID Tags.
Using auto-ID tags means that the smartness is only enabled only during
specific time frames of the active production phases by a complementary
infrastructure. The complementary infrastructure allows the accessing
of the product’s on-board information and couples it with the logical border
components. For example these “smart characteristics” are active only in the