Manufacturing-X: SMEs move into practice

With the increasing networking of production systems, supply chains, and data infrastructures, the European industry is undergoing a profound transformation. And it is under pressure because the speed of international competition continues to increase. The Manufacturing-X initiative aims to accelerate industrial transformation by creating a connected data ecosystem.

The key to this lies in open standards, compatible data spaces, an efficient communication infrastructure, and close collaboration between industry, technology providers, and multipliers - as demonstrated by the joint press conference of the Smart Systems Hub with partners from the SME sector such as N+P Informationssysteme or ULT AG, research, and associations like VDMA and ZVEI as part of Hub:disrupt.

The focus of the discussion at the Transparent Factory in Dresden is on success stories from SME practice and the interaction of research, multipliers, technology partners, and industrial companies.

In the rapid and effective transfer of individual Manufacturing-X transformation projects and approaches into industrial practice, the Smart Systems Hub and its partners are among the pioneers. In the Hub's Learn-&-Explore environment, real use cases from medium-sized industrial companies are tested and adapted together with technology providers. This ensures co-innovation, from the initial approach to productive implementation in everyday business.

“Our digital-analog test environment acts as a bridge to medium-sized practice. Through the virtual data space and the connection with a real model plant, ideas for new business approaches or the digitization of the supply chain can be tested, further developed, and made ready for implementation. This has made it possible in recent months to develop real applications for productive operation under the umbrella of Manufacturing-X together with technology and industry partners,” explains Michael Kaiser, managing director of the Smart Systems Hub.

Innovative strength and co-innovation: from idea to industrial implementation

Specifically, the partner Sitec was able to further test its connACT Services offering through the test environment and bring additional functionalities to application maturity. “With connACT and our digital services, we offer customers the possibilities of data-driven process optimization, predictive maintenance of their systems, or new usage models. We were able to expose our solution in the virtual-analog test environment within the framework of Manufacturing-X to new conditions and use cases. This has significantly reduced the development time and risks for our new functions,” reports Nico Nebel, managing director of Sitec Industrietechnologie GmbH.

Technology partners of the Smart Systems Hub also confirm the added value of a shared testing and development space: “We have been digitizing our customers' processes since 1990 and creating cross-system value chains. Due to the new technological possibilities of cloud platforms and new standards for cross-company data exchange, such as Manufacturing-X, we are experiencing a new complexity for our customers. It is all the more important to create simple and uncomplicated testing opportunities through cross-industry co-innovation projects. An example of this is the Manufacturing-X testbed of the Smart Systems Hub,” explains Till Hertwig, partner and member of the management of the medium-sized digitalization expert N+P Informationssysteme.

Another international partner of the Hub shares this insight: “Data often only fully unfolds its value in the industrial value chain when it can be used across system, company, and industry boundaries. Cooperation and open standards are the foundation for this. They turn individual projects into a learning industrial ecosystem. The joint Learn-&-Explore environment with the Smart Systems Hub is a lever for adaptation and co-innovation,” says Dr. Michael Ameling, President SAP Business Technology Platform, Member of the Extended Board, SAP. The software company provides tools for operating the data space for the test environment.

Interoperability as a lever for the industrial future

In addition to this practical success story, the Dresden press conference also shows that only through standardized and interoperable, compatible data spaces can companies securely exchange information across industries, scale AI applications, and develop sustainable business models.

“The mid-sized sector and especially industrial value creation are under massive pressure. International tensions, trade disputes, the decline in demand in the Anglo-Saxon region, or the rapid development of suppliers in the Far East require future-proof solutions. Only if Germany and Europe share data sovereignly and use it interoperably in the future will companies remain competitive in the long term,” emphasizes Alexander Jakschik, vice president of VDMA.

The relevance of interoperability on a technical level is demonstrated by research: “In our Semiconductor-X project within the Manufacturing-X initiative for the digitization of supply chains in the semiconductor industry, we see in collaboration with other data spaces from various industries that only seamless data exchange across company and industry boundaries creates real resilience,” explains Prof. Dr. Dirk Reichelt, head of the professorship for information management at HTW Dresden.

The data space expert present from the automotive industry strikes a similar chord: "From the experience with the productive data space Catena-X in our sector, we know that backward compatibility within a data space and version compatibility between data spaces are crucial. Only in this way do the solutions gain the trust of users and thus broad acceptance and use," says Thomas Obermeyer, lead dataspace architect, Catena-X Automotive Network e. V.

From pilot to productive operation: transfer and implementation on a broad scale

The Manufacturing-X projects like Semiconductor-X, Factory-X, or Aerospace-X create the technical foundations for interoperable data spaces. The know-how is already available in Germany. However, it is only through the joint approach of transfer projects like Scale-MX under the leadership of industry associations VDMA and ZVEI, digital hubs, and the corresponding economic development initiatives that these solutions are brought into the mid-sized sector and into productive broad-scale operation.

"Our goal is to convey the benefits of the industrial data ecosystem to users, providers, and multipliers in a practical way and to motivate them to participate. To this end, we are in close exchange with the X-projects, prepare their use cases in a target group-oriented manner, and bring them specifically into the mid-sized sector through congresses, workshops, and forums," explains Dr. Angelina Marko, project manager SCALE-MX, managing director of the ZVEI platform Digital Ecosystems & Smart Services ZVEI. This would address the central challenges in implementation: interoperability, standardization, and building trust.

The European data ecosystem needs the necessary infrastructure

The industry requires not only interoperable data spaces but also a secure and high-performance communication infrastructure. Without the appropriate computing and transmission capabilities, there is no digital real-time exchange between companies. The IPCEI-CIS (Important Project of Common European Interest - Cloud and Edge Infrastructure and Services) strengthens Europe's resilience by building a secure, high-performance, and vendor-independent cloud and edge infrastructure. Local computing units are networked with central data centers from different providers to enable effective exchange between data spaces. When projects like IPCEI-CIS are closely linked with Manufacturing-X, they form the foundation for digital sovereignty and Europe's future global competitiveness.

“Within the framework of IPCEI-CIS, numerous projects have been approved so far, ranging from basic research to concrete industrial applications. The close networking of competencies from research institutions to medium-sized businesses and corporations, as well as across national borders, ensures a high pace of development and strong innovation momentum. In at most a year and a half, the first concrete successes are likely to be recorded here. Now it's time to advance further projects in the IPCEI context, such as IPCEI-CIC and IPCEI-AI,” explains Ralf Pechmann, CEO at Telekom MMS, a central German project partner.

IPCEI-CIC aims to establish a sovereign, distributed computing continuum in Europe as a foundation for cloud and AI applications. IPCEI-AI, on the other hand, promotes research and industrial implementation of AI technologies to strengthen European competitiveness. Together, they create an integrated digital infrastructure where AI is based on a European cloud and edge architecture.