Connected, Digitalized Welding Production—industrie 4.0 in Gas Metal Arc Welding

The digitalization and thus the presence of far-reaching, networked information technology have led to fundamental and accelerated changes in society and technology in recent decades. Industrial production technology cannot be viewed isolated in this context and is thus confronted with new expectations on the one hand but also with great potential on the other. Initiatives such as “Industrie 4.0” from Germany, “Made in China 2015” from China, or “Industrial Internet Consortium” from the USA address the need for deliberate promotion of digitalized production systems but are often still at the conceptual stage. This paper describes the basic framework and core elements of Industrie 4.0 and places them in the context of gas metal arc welding (GMAW). Based on this, concepts for autonomous welding production and for utilizing networked information sources for the improvement of product quality are described. The described concepts show the potential added value of networked production systems for gas metal arc welding in terms of process and product optimization and the necessary methodological requirements.