Manufacturing-X initiative: working together to digitize industrial supply chains

May 22, 2023

The realization of the Industrie 4.0 dataspace is intended to enable organizations to exchange product and production-relevant data securely and confidently across the entire manufacturing and supply chain.

In the Catena-X Automotive Network, a large number of partners are already working together on the implementation of a data ecosystem for the value network of the automotive industry. With the Manufacturing-X initiative, the standards and systems developed to date around the management shell and the Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) from the Catena-X project and numerous other Industrie 4.0 projects and initiatives are to be used to realize the Industrie 4.0 data space across the entire breadth of the manufacturing industry.

To this end, lighthouse projects are to be initiated with alliances consisting of small and large companies as well as the scientific community, which will drive forward the rapid and effective establishment of data ecosystems for relevant lead industries. However, for the initiative to be a success, the development of simple and cost-effective solutions that enable medium-sized companies to participate in and benefit from these data spaces also plays an important role.

The March 2023 webinar of the ZD.B Digital Production & Engineering theme platform of Bayern Innovativ provided insights into the Manufacturing-X initiative, about its goals and technical basis as part of the "From Research to Practice" webinar series.

Manufacturing-X - the open initiative to build the cross-industry and decentralized data space for Industrie 4.0

In the first presentation, the industrial initiative Manufacturing-X will be introduced from the perspective of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) by Mr. Fabian Hammel, Department IVA3 Digitalization, Industrie 4.0. What are the strategic goals of the BMWK with its support of the Manufacturing-X industrial initiative? What is the mission? What is the motivation? How does the initiative fit into the existing project landscape on Industry 4.0? How can a community be formed from this? And what are the planning status and possible contents of a funding program to support Manufacturing-X in order to implement the open, decentralized and collaborative data space for Industrie 4.0 across all industries? These are all the questions that the BMWK is addressing.

The overarching goals are to strengthen the resilience, sustainability and competitive strength of industry in Germany and Europe. To this end, value creation networks are to be reorganized and made more flexible so that existing information can be used easily. Sustainability is to be increased by becoming more efficient and enabling new digital solutions, e.g. to map the CO2 balancing of products and components across the entire supply chain. And all of this against a backdrop of massive economic pressure to act due to highly volatile and high energy prices, labor costs, and a shortage of skilled workers. In addition, there are constantly new regulatory requirements.

Bringing stakeholders to the table

The aim of Manufacturing-X is to bring industry together across sectors. It is intended to enable companies to exchange data securely and confidently without losing control over their own data. Legal framework conditions must be created for this. Interoperable standards are needed. And it needs a value proposition to want to participate in data spaces in the first place. This is especially true for smaller and medium-sized companies, which may not yet have the corresponding IT infrastructures.

Use cases for industry

How exactly does the BMWK intend to achieve this? First, an overarching technological basis is to be developed in funded collaborative projects. This involves an interoperable data infrastructure, common basic services and uniform rules and standards for multilateral data exchange. In addition, use cases are to be implemented that illustrate the added value of the decentralized data room using concrete examples. One possible example is collaborative condition monitoring. Here, the cooperation of machine manufacturers and machine operators is crucial.

Ready to go

By the summer of 2023, the plan is to publish a funding guideline and get off the ground with Manufacturing-X on a broad basis. Interested parties will then have the opportunity to realize their own project ideas on Manufacturing-X with government funding. In addition, it is already possible to participate in the Manufacturing-X initiative without funding. For ongoing information, the Platform Industry 4.0 is available as a central point of contact. A funding concept for Manufacturing-X was published as part of Hannover Messe 2023 and can be downloaded here:

>> Download funding concept Manufacturing-X

Management Shell and Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) - Building Blocks for Dataspaces for the Implementation of Manufacturing-X

Mr. Johannes Diemer is research coordinator at ARENA2036 (Active Research Environment for the Next generation of Automobiles). This is a research campus of the funding initiative "Research Campus - Public-Private Partnership for Innovation" in Germany. ARENA2036 is supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and is run as a registered association with members from science and industry. The members are active in various sectors - from the automotive industry to aerospace technology, textile and materials research, and labor science. They are key to co-creative work on a wide variety of interdisciplinary projects. One topic they are working on is the building blocks for data spaces for the implementation of Manufacturing-X. Here, data spaces are seen as the future of digital collaboration. In this context, they are pursuing the implementation of the horizontal value creation networks characterized in the context of Industrie 4.0. This aims to enable all partners within an ecosystem to benefit from each other.

Two essential technologies play together here: the management shell, which emerged from the Industrie 4.0 platform initiative, and data exchange via dataspace connectors, such as the Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC).

Successful use of Gaia-X and Catena-X

When it comes to data exchange for horizontal value networking, the company draws on experience gained through the Gaia-X initiative in the past. Gaia-X was launched in 2019 and aims to implement data protection, data sovereignty, openness and transparency in the EU. Thus, the architecture of the connectors and federated services necessary for data sovereignty was developed by Gaia-X and the concrete implementation was realized within the framework of Catena-X.

Catena-X thus realizes the first sovereign data space for the complete supply chain of the automotive industry. The pressure to act is there: supply chains are to become resilient, production efficient and climate-neutral, and material cycles closed. With Manufacturing-X, data spaces are now to be networked across industries and, at the same time, the integration of the store floor in production is to be realized (vertically).

Management shell as a technological prerequisite

This will only work if enough data is shared across companies and also "understood". One prerequisite for this is that all machines and processes involved in the value creation process are mapped as interoperable digital twins. The administration shell, also known as the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), provides the technological prerequisite for this. It stores linked data in a structured manner. Not only components and products can be mapped digitally, but also information on supply chains, for example.

Clarification of data sovereignty

The other prerequisite is data sovereignty. If data is available, it must be clarified who has control over this data and with whom it may be shared and to what extent. So this is a question of access rights and a contractual basis on which this data sharing is based. From a technological perspective, Mr. Diemer believes that choosing a decentralized approach is crucial. This is where connectors, such as the EDC, come in, ensuring that data exchange only ever takes place between two points. In the future, appropriate measures for verifying identities and authenticity will have to be addressed. The result will be an ecosystem that helps actors not only transfer data, but also recognize and prioritize the importance of the data.

With the ARENA-X initiative, the aforementioned technologies with their different implementations are to be brought together in one place and an "easy-to-use" environment for demonstrating, trying out and testing is to be created. This is an ideal environment for small and medium-sized enterprises that want to try out data room approaches, technologies and standards. Automated orchestration processes will support the establishment of proof of concepts. These include, for example, the exchange of CAD data in system engineering or traceability. A first test bed is scheduled to start as early as this fall.

The role of Manufacturing-X for the realization of adaptive manufacturing process chains

There are major interdependencies between the individual process steps in a value chain. In order to be able to achieve the best possible product quality and production efficiency, it is therefore necessary to react to information from preceding process steps. How such adaptive process chains can be realized with the help of digital technologies is currently being investigated under the leadership of GRAMMER AG in the AdaProQ research project (link to: adaproq.de/). In the context of Industry 4.0, adaptivity is synonymous here with a new form of flexibility in manufacturing processes and process chains that adapt and optimize themselves autonomously. The presentation by Norbert Skala of GRAMMER AG provides an insight into the project and shows what role Manufacturing-X plays for the realization of adaptive manufacturing process chains.

The AdaProQ

In the context of AdaProQ, a generic method framework is to be developed on the basis of different industrial applications, which can be adapted to practically all industrial manufacturing process chains. AdaProQ considers quality assurance in adaptive process chains across different stages of the value chain and implements solutions to increase production quality and efficiency based on different use cases.

The use of AI

Quite specifically, this is described using the example of the production of a punch press. Today, the linking of process chains is usually uneconomical here, e.g. due to tight tolerances of the individual processes. Necessary adaptation processes are often time-consuming and experience-intensive. The aim of the project is to use AI methods, data platform concepts in conjunction with component traceability and sensor/actuator concepts to adaptively optimize process chains. Humans are to be integrated in the process through appropriate human-machine interfaces.

A holistic view of large parts of the existing process chain allows a complete re-evaluation of manufacturing tolerances. Through the use of artificial intelligence, efficient optimization and sensory as well as active components, complex manufacturing processes are enabled to adapt themselves in such a way that they react adequately and autonomously to changing boundary conditions, component quality improves and the reject rate is reduced.

Identification concept as the basis for data exchange

This requires not only digital communication in-house, but also with suppliers and customers. This means that in order to make the use of artificial intelligence interoperable at all, two aspects are of immense importance.

One is that the data itself is available in a management shell or in other metadata structures. On the other hand, it needs an identifier that makes the part or product available again for identification. What is needed, therefore, is an identification concept for all engineering and material data.

One use case considered in the AdaProQ project deals with the production of support bars for headrests. Here, one already takes into account the raw material properties in the form of digital data from the supplier for quality assurance or the determination of the CO2 footprint. In the next process step of notching and bending, a component identification concept is to be developed which can still be read after surface treatment. In chrome plating, the hope is to optimize quality and efficiency on the basis of data from upstream processes.

Continuing the success story together

Here, too, it becomes clear that Manufacturing-X is also about realizing adaptive manufacturing process chains. How can data be shared multilaterally in data rooms? Which potentials can be passed on? Which data spaces can be connected? These and other questions are being pursued further by a group of organizations based on the AdaProQ project. At the end of his presentation, Mr. Skala invites the audience to continue writing the story of adaptive process chains together. Currently, more than 25 companies and institutions are involved in the project. Other interested parties are welcome to join.

The webinar series "From research into practice"

In the event format of the ZD.B thematic platform Digital Production & Engineering of Bayern Innovativ, research institutions and companies provide insights into current research activities and discuss them with participants. The aim is to support small and medium-sized enterprises in particular in making sensible use of digital technologies in their production processes and engineering.