Institute of production investigations (BFI) of the Society of German metallurgists (VDEh) actively works for development and applied usage of new measuring and testing methods since its establishment in 1968. The main emphasis is made now on industrial usage of newly developed processes as general full-scale systematic solution. This paper gives examples on recent developments of the institute inside the wide range of problems: from melt metallurgy to on-line measurements of thin layers of cold-rolled strip.