If the dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is to be a suc­cess for the Ger­man econ­o­my, it needs end-to-end net­work­ing and data sov­er­eign­ty. These are the require­ments for new inno­va­tions and busi­ness mod­els. Pol­i­tics, busi­ness, sci­ence, and asso­ci­a­tions should now work togeth­er to cre­ate the nec­es­sary stan­dards and frame­work con­di­tions for this.

“Because we know that real added val­ue from dig­i­tal­iza­tion only emerges when all the data from the pro­duc­tion process is com­bined.”

Hen­rik A. Schunk, CEO SCHUNK

The start­ing point is the Manufacturing‑X ini­tia­tive, launched by Net­zw­erk­plat­tform Indus­trie 4.0, which aims to imple­ment a com­mon sov­er­eign data space that net­works Ger­man indus­try in order to make val­ue chains more trans­par­ent and resilient in the future. This requires the exper­tise and active involve­ment of Ger­man SMEs.

Prac­ti­cal approach­es

This requires the exper­tise and active par­tic­i­pa­tion of Ger­man SMEs. SCHUNK ful­ly sup­ports this ini­tia­tive. “Because we know that real added val­ue from dig­i­tal­iza­tion only emerges when all the data from the pro­duc­tion process is com­bined,” empha­sizes Hen­rik A. Schunk. Now we need to tar­get the next lev­el of net­work­ing and bring dif­fer­ent indus­tries togeth­er in a com­mon data net­work. It is the com­mon goal to map sup­ply chains trans­par­ent­ly in order to deter­mine, for exam­ple, the real car­bon foot­print of a prod­uct in the future. As a rep­re­sen­ta­tive, the two fed­er­at­ed asso­ci­a­tions VDMA and ZVEI are already at the fore­front of intel­li­gent­ly net­worked pro­duc­tion.

With the asset admin­is­tra­tion shell stan­dard (Dig­i­tal Twin) for Indus­try 4.0, the Euro­pean ini­tia­tive “Gala‑X” or the flag­ship project “Catena‑X” for dig­i­tal­iz­ing the sup­ply chains of the auto­mo­tive indus­try, there are already basic build­ing blocks, to build a fed­er­al data ecosys­tem “Manufacturing‑X.” The inte­gra­tion of small and medi­um-sized enter­pris­es through needs-based appli­ca­tion con­cepts, in addi­tion to inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion with glob­al stan­dards, is a core goal.

Build­ing trust

Manufacturing‑X is lead­ing the way to a sov­er­eign data future. It will dri­ve the devel­op­ment of the nec­es­sary tech­nolo­gies for open-source data ecosys­tems for­ward and and will there­by ini­ti­ate a cul­tur­al change. “The coop­er­a­tion and the open exchange are the basic con­di­tions for the suc­cess of the ini­tia­tive. With one anoth­er, for one anoth­er,” says Hen­rik A. Schunk. This is a pre­req­ui­site that the desired com­mon data room will also become an area of trust.