F. A. Z. exclusive: An App Store for the industry

Volkswagen has opened its industrial platform in the future, the 122 factories of the group are to be networked all over the world, in a first step, for the eleven engineering and technology company. “In the future we intend to integrate additional companies, such as, for example, suppliers in the Cloud,” said strategic projects of VW responsible Manager Nihar Patel at the launch of the plans in Wolfsburg.

Carsten Germis

economic correspondent in Hamburg.

F. A. Z.

the aim of the work with Amazon and Siemens-built Cloud “to the App Store” for the works to be. With the help of the Cloud, the car wants to boost mobile, the efficiency of its factories noticeable. The partners took advantage of the Cloud, in turn, “can scale your applications and to your own business processes to optimize. In this way, they all benefit,“ said Patel.

Among the eleven suppliers who join now at the Start of the Cloud, are internationally known names such as the automation technology group ABB, the automotive supplier of Dürr, the Software company Celonis or the database specialist Teradata. Volkswagen and Amazon have created the shared Cloud for all plants of the Volkswagen brand in the spring of 2019, as a partner network.

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a Little later Siemens as an “integration partner, was added” in order to network the machines and equipment in the factories of the group’s brands efficiently in the Cloud to each other and to organize production more efficiently. VW-in-chief Herbert Diess had criticized in the past few years, Volkswagen is compared to the competition in its factories and in the administration slower and less productive than other companies.

The range of Software applications, the introduction of the new Partner now on the platform of VW, are calculated is an Artificial-intelligence algorithm, the demand of driverless transportation systems, in-plant logistics and efficient distributed, and a Software for the optimization of the maintenance intervals of machines. At the Start of the Cloud should be connected to the end of the year, in a first step 18 European sites of the group.

“The data that we lead together with the Industrial Cloud, create intelligent Algorithms and Software-applications more efficiency,” said Patel. With the number of partners, the VW for its Cloud, grows can access the number of solutions to which the plants then, as in a App Store. The platform was “not a closed Club,” said a VW Manager. “We are always open to collaborations – with suppliers and any other company that has something to contribute.”