Multimedia Applications in the Manufacturing Area: Scope and Limits

Multimedia technologies are increasingly becoming part of the industrial process. So far, the main fields of application have been marketing and distribution. In the manufacturing area, however, multimedia applications are less frequently used, and the supply of practicable systems on the market has been comparably low. This contrasts sharply with the wide range of possible applications and high benefit potentials opening up in precisely this area. Presently, companies trying to approach multimedia projects are soon confronted with the negative aspects of an extremely dynamic hardware and software development: no clear definition of standards, no practical tests and only a few referenc es existing, compatibility problems are common and comprehensive systems solutions are hardly available. For those reasons, the decision on investing in multimedia or not is linked with fundamental risks. This article contributes to the basic elements of practicable multimedia systems, gives a survey of critical components and describes one method for the evaluation of their economic efficiency.