You offer visitors the opportunity to approach your company in a different way - using augmented reality. Why is that?

Marhofer : The augmented reality installation at our trade fair stand shows the different areas in which the ifm Group is active very well. The technology of the 3D camera, which is built into the Lenovo smartphones with the AR application, comes from our subsidiary pmdtechnologies. We are the only medium-sized company in the world that has direct access to 3D camera technology - which we also use in our industrial 3D cameras.

At the same time, we are using the AR exhibit to show what Industry 4.0 applications could look like in the future - the possibilities in areas such as maintenance and servicing are enormous. This will massively change the way employees carry out their tasks in the future. Efficiency will increase and costs will fall.

Of course, ifm's traditional products - the sensors - are also represented in the exhibit. The fact that these can be operated via the AR application and their data is available directly on the smartphone is a very nice example of how much the communication capability of our products is coming to the fore today.

Such an augmented reality application was already on show at another trade fair this year - what was the visitor response?

Marhofer : The visitor response at the Hanover trade fair was overwhelming, with long queues forming at times. Even if the exhibit is not very meaningful in passing, as you need the smartphone with the 3D camera and the AR application, it is still an eye-catcher when visitors look enthusiastically at the seemingly empty spaces.

Is virtual reality a topic for ifm outside the trade fair?

Marhofer : The exhibit is by no means just a gimmick; augmented reality applications are currently being discussed in many areas. Maintenance and servicing are just two of them. We are convinced that this technology will soon find its way into numerous industrial applications. For us, end-to-end communication from the sensors to the ERP level and into the cloud is one of the keys to Industry 4.0. And this is one of the foundations for making AR applications possible at all.