Like any other company looking towards a successful future, Hannover-based international technology giant Continental is also driving the digital transformation of the industrial sector. What's more, by pursuing ever greater networking, it is laying strategic foundations that will enable it to expand its future business models. "By 2020, approximately 50 billion devices around the world will be networked with each other. Intelligent factories, machines that interact with each other and networked plants will be essential components throughout the entire manufacturing value chain," says Hans-Jürgen Duensing, Member of the Executive Board of Continental AG Responsible for the ContiTech division. To make sure it is always aware of the condition of important components in plants and industrial vehicles, Continental is increasingly counting on technologies, systems and apps that support predictive maintenance systems for machinery and processes. It is against this backdrop that the company is, for the first time, bringing predictive maintenance and condition monitoring solutions for industrial plants and machinery to HANNOVER MESSE 2017.

Among these futuristic solutions is the concept for a new V-belt. Like virtually everything else tagged with the buzz words "predictive maintenance", these belts are also fitted with special sensors that will help measure and monitor important conditions in real time. To do this, the smart V-belt transmits its data and information - whether relating to temperature, elongation, surface wear, etc. - directly to a PC or a control unit. This technology could quickly yield benefits, particularly in the case of specialist machinery and difficult-to-access drives.