It may seem early to most of you, but we editors here at Plastics Technology are already hard at work preparing for NPE2018, the giant plastics show coming up May 7-11 in Orlando, Fla. In doing even the most preliminary research on what exhibitors plan to display, one thing seems certain: The biggest splash at NPE will come from the wave of technological innovation and futuristic enthusiasm known variously as Industry 4.0 or the Smart Factory or the Internet of Things.
That wave has charged across the ocean from Europe, where new protocols for machine-to-machine and machine-to-central-computer communications are being developed under the leadership of the German machinery association, or VDMA.
