It may sound like science fiction, but components that intrinsically store information on their own production and find their way through the processing steps without outside controlling, or landing gears that monitor their own condition autonomously and call for an inspection if necessary, will soon become reality thanks to the Collaborative Research Centre 653 “Gentelligent Components in Their Lifecycle – Utilization of Inheritable Component Information in Product Engineering”. Within Collaborative Research Centre 653 components with novel properties as well as concepts, methods and techniques for their manufacturing and utilization in production engineering will be developed. This interdisciplinary CRC’s long-term objective is the integration of components with their corresponding information for reproduction as well as stress information from their lifecycle.