The constantly increasing challenges of production technology for the economic and resource-saving production of metallic
workpieces require, among other things, the optimisation of existing processes. Forming technology, which is confronted
with new challenges regarding the quality of the workpieces, must also organise the individual processes more efciently
and at the same time more reliably in order to be able to guarantee good workpiece quality and at the same time to be able to
produce economically. One way to meet these challenges is to carry out the forming processes in closed-loop control systems
using softsensors. Despite the many potential applications of softsensors in the feld of forming technology, there is still no
defnition of the term softsensor. This publication therefore proposes a defnition of the softsensor based on the defnition
of a sensor and the distinction from the observer, which on the one hand is intended to stimulate scientifc discourse and on
the other hand is also intended to form the basis for further scientifc work. Based on this defnition, a wide variety of highly
topical application examples of various softsensors in the feld of forming technology are given.