【正文】 the flexibility and accuracy of thematerial handling gear especially for the positioning of partson the aggregates and the aggregates itself as well.Since the use of forging aggregates themselves is onlylimited flexible due to the monly inflexible tooling, it iscrucial that a rapid exchange of tools is possible, as well asthe exchange of whole aggregates like preforming units andthe flexibility of the handling gear.A possibility to improve the reliability and to reach ahigher reproducibility of the forging process is to increasethe degree of automation and to introduce an online processmonitoring and control system [3]. Automated processes aremore reproducible and less susceptible for human failures,which are especially harmful for precision forging. The partsneed to be positioned exactly in the die otherwise thedistribution of mass is not guaranteed to be sufficient. Withconventional forging processes this subject is not so relevantsince the flash can pensate slight invariances of positioning.Because of the high modularity and flexibility of theforging line with the possibility of changing and biningponents, special requirements have to be fulfilled by thecontrolling unit. For the project IPH chose the bustechnology and a PCbased controlling intelligence. This controlsystem can be used to independently and separately coordinate shearing, heating, forging, cooling, clipping and material handling. Special requirements for a controlling systemused in the forging industry is its resistibility to the influenceof dirt, heat, vibration and strong electromagic fieldsfrom the inductive heating systems, which is ensured bythe Profibus system [7]. Such a system can be controlledby a PCbased system which enables a simple and quickintegration of additional units that are added with an serialconnection. Furthermore it allows an easy exchange ofaggregates only by connecting the bus to the added aggregate and integrating the new object to the control software.The sample forging line which will be described (Fig. 7)was developed for a flashless precision forged gear wheel[4].Thefirst stage of the forging process are the billet shearson which raw parts are produced. After shearing the slugswill pass an inductive heating system to warm them to1200 8C. A multiaxis robot supplies the heated slugs tothe forging press on which the forgings will be produced inone forming stage by closed die forging. During this processcooling, lubrication and cleaning of the die elementsare carried out with a moveable nozzle. After the forgingprocess an aggregate for controlled heat treatment isinstalled. The forged part can later be punched by a clippingpress and final measurement and quality control of theforged products should be performed for example on a3D coordinate measuring machine.An important issue for controlling the automated processis the collection of process data via sensors. The temperatureof the slugs and the forging tools has to be held in a steadystate. Here the temperature of the slugs is measured with apyrometer and especially in the warm up phase or afterbreaks not correctly warmed parts are sorted out. Anotherpossibility to get a more stable process is to control theFig. 7. Automated forging line.S. Reinsch et al. / Journal of Materials Processing Technology 138 (2020) 16–21 19die temperature. This can be achieved by controlled coolingor heating by means of fluids, like spray cooling or fluidcooling in the cope of tool. To control the wear of the die,the measurement of the press force and the die strain arepossible solutions.For process automation the handling of parts and theachieving of a certain mass distribution by the integrationof a rolling aggregate in the forging cell are the mainproblems.4. Production management systemApart from a highlevel of automation and a configurationthat enables a flexible adoption of the forging line todifferent products, the utilization of the process monitoringand control system, which is required for the precisionforging, enables the introduction of an integrated production management system. This integrated productionmanagement system is supposed to be able to bine thefunctions of a traditional production management systemlike order processing, generation of routings, capacityplanning and scheduling, material and tool managementwith the feedback of the PCbased online monitoring(Fig. 8).The production management system consists of six basicelements: the order processing, generation of routings, thecapacity planning and scheduling, the material management,the tool management and the production data control. Thoseelements had to be adapted to the specific requirements of anadvanced manufacturing system for forging parts. Besidesconsidering the limitation for the bination between thedifferent work systems (rolling machines, heaters and multiple parallel forging aggregates, etc.) for the process plan, thetypical tool restriction and machine specification are takeninto account. Furthermore not every tool can be mounted oneach forging aggregate due to different fixtures and not allproduct can run on every forging aggregate due to space andforce li