Digital photo development will in the near future exceed the production capacity of analog photo development as digital cameras are becoming very popular. The rapid growth in this market demands an adjustment of the already existing production network infrastructure regarding the increased transmission output and hence the possible resulting need for expansion. Esspecially for CeWe color Digital Designas the worldwide largest photofinisher in the area of digital photography, the ideal utilization and scalability of the production networks as well as the conditional use of special hardware offer a firm basis for an optimal production process.

The purpose of the project and the task for the Design Center is to closely analyse the CeWe Color Digital GmbH network infrastructure, to localise possible bottle-necks and to develop necessary concrete resolution methods. The potential for economic application of digitally developed hardware created especially for CeWe, for example the compression of transferred data and as a side effect the formulation of the optimisation of already existing network structures, concerning the used hard- and software will be examined in the process.