While “Industrie 4.0” had been a new and unknown term at the Hannover Fair in 2011, it has now, five years later, become one of the most widely used expressions in the context of production discussions in most industry branches. “What does Industrie 4.0 mean?” This question was asked quite frequently and, as a matter of fact, it could only be answered ambiguously in the past five years. But since every company has a different understanding of this buzz‐word, a general definition cannot be given at all.

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Precise infrared (IR) optics are core elements of infrared cameras for thermal imaging and night vision applications and can be manufactured directly or using a replicative process. For instance, precision glass molding (PGM) is a replicative manufacturing method that meets the demand of producing precise and accurate glass optics in a cost-efficient manner. However, several iterations in the PGM process are applied to compensate the induced form deviation and the index drop after molding. The finite element method (FEM) is utilized to simulate the thermomechanical process, predicting the optical properties of molded chalcogenide lenses and thus preventing costly iterations. Prior to FEM modelling, self-developed glass characterization methods for the stress and structure relaxation of chalcogenide glass IRG 26 are implemented. Additionally, a ray-tracing method is developed in this work to calculate the optical path difference (OPD) based on the mesh structure results from the FEM simulation. The developed method is validated and conducted during the production of molded lenses.

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