Volkswagen, together with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and integration partner Siemens, is opening up the Industrial Cloud to other manufacturing and technology companies. New partner companies will be able to connect with Volkswagen plants and to contribute their own software applications for optimizing production processes to the Industrial Cloud. This way, a rapidly growing range of industrial software applications for Volkswagen’s plants will be created.
Each location will be able to obtain applications for its machinery, tools and equipment direct from the Industrial Cloud to optimize production (app store approach). The Volkswagen Group expects significant efficiency and productivity gains at its plants. The partner companies will be able to scale and further develop their applications in one of the world’s largest automobile production networks. This will also enable them to optimize their own processes and products. As a first step, eleven pioneering international companies, ABB, ASCon Systems, BearingPoint, Celonis, Dürr, GROB-WERKE, MHP, NavVis, SYNAOS, Teradata and WAGO, will be joining the Industrial Cloud.
”With the Industrial Cloud we are creating a platform allowing partners to contribute their solutions. This will help the Volkswagen Group achieve global efficiencies at its plants. At the same time. we are creating the pathway for partners to scale their applications and optimize their own operations. This way, everyone will benefit,” said Nihar Patel, Executive Vice President New Business Development at Volkswagen AG.
In future, the Industrial Cloud is to include all Volkswagen’s factories throughout the world and its global supply chain and will facilitate data interchange between systems and plants. The system is based on AWS technologies in the fields of Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, data analytics, and computing services, which have been extended specifically to meet the requirements of Volkswagen and the automotive industry.
Volkswagen and AWS see the development of the Industrial Cloud into an open partner network as a key step and intend to further intensify the App Store approach. In the long term, the partners aim to create a marketplace for industrial applications. All participants would then be able to exchange their applications with each other, to acquire applications and to use them irrespective of any links to Volkswagen. Development of the technological basis for this marketplace is already in progress.
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