Recently, most extrusion plants are not suitably connected to the system environment. Thus, they are neither able to monitor entirely the process data of all sub-processes nor to use the data for value added purposes. Although extrusion plants partially measure and record diverse process values, the data are only sometimes used for quality insurance, product optimization or design of subsequent production steps and predictive maintenance.

Rising product requirements of extrusion profiles demand increasing digital transparency of the process chain since each sub-process in the production chain affects the properties (mechanical, physical) of the extrudates. Besides, the aspired smart production requires the measuring and analyses of digital process values within the full production chain. The superordinate objective is the development of a control system on the basis of measurement and simulation values, which monitors the production process in real time and takes regulative action in case of unwanted process changes. In a first step the novel measuring and analyzing system MAuS was developed in order to fulfil a completely digital documentation and respectively to generate a digital twin of the extruded product over the entire process chain. By using commercially available measurement instrumentation and sensor components the system environment “extrusion plant with heterogenous machinery” was time- and cost-efficiently connected and industry 4.0 technology implemented and applied. At the end of the runtime of the project MAuS was able to identify disruptive factors and to provide input requirements for actual and subsequent process control based on analyzation of real-time measurements, databases and software-apps containing metal-physical and technical equations.