With the Internet enabling things to communicate with each other, products and machines have become ‘intelligent’. The principal goal of the Center of Excellence for Smart Production is to research different models in order to optimise the use of distributed intelligence. The development of innovative modelling, simulation and optimisation approaches is equally important for enabling holistic process evaluation and fully realising the potential for optimisation and includes, of course, business model innovation. Moreover, new fields of application in 3D printing/rapid prototyping — of metal components in particular — are being researched.