Volkswagen, together with Amazon Web Services and integration partner Siemens, is opening up its 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.
VW says the opening up of the platform will help create “a rapidly growing range of industrial software applications for Volkswagen’s plants”.
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). VW 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, 11 international companies will be joining the VW Industrial Cloud. They are:
- ABB;
- ASCon Systems;
- BearingPoint;
- Celonis;
- Dürr;
- GROB-WERKE;
- MHP;
- NavVis;
- SYNAOS;
- Teradata; and
- WAGO.
Nihar Patel, executive vice president new business development at Volkswagen, says: “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.”
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, machine learning, data analytics, and computing services, which have been extended specifically to meet the requirements of Volkswagen and the automotive industry.
Dirk Didascalou, vice president of AWS IoT, says: “Today’s news continues our initial mission of the Industrial Cloud project to help Volkswagen together with Siemens and their partners to focus their resources on optimizing production, creating new business opportunities for smart products, and improving operational efficiency across the entire value chain.
“We look forward to watching the marketplace collaboration flourish as participants take advantage of the AWS native open architecture of the Industrial Cloud.”
