voestalpine Industry 4.0

voestalpine Wire Rod Austria GmbH produces wire rod that meets the highest quality standards in the automotive, energy, and mechanical engineering industries.

At its Donawitz site in Austria, voestalpine AG has built the most modern wire rolling mill in the world, with a hall complex covering 100,000 square meters. Ars Electronica Solutions developed an interactive concept for visitor tours for this plant and implemented it impressively with the support of Garamantis.

The design concept presents the industrial plant to visitors in an innovative way and makes “Industry 4.0” tangible and experiential. In information containers within the hall complex, the entire production process is first clearly presented using a combination of print and touch monitors.

Augmented reality screens explain production processes

The highlight of the exhibition is the view into the huge production halls. Two large transparent AR monitors display additional information about the machines in precisely the right position, opening up completely new perspectives and digital information levels. Visitors can virtually look inside the machines and visually follow the various processing steps. In addition, a large-scale ceiling projection provides a virtual insight into a manufacturing process that would otherwise not be visible.

In this project, Garamantis brought the installed hardware to life and developed the necessary software and a central content management system for all content in the interactive installations.

Photos: Ars Electronica, Stephan Pointner