"We intend to make our Volkswagen Industrial Cloud a partner network, with digital functions bringing benefits to all participating companies,” says Oliver Blume, chairman of Porsche AG executive board and the management board member responsible for production at Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft. “In Siemens, we have secured a strong partner with outstanding digitalisation and industry expertise.”
Klaus Helmrich, managing board member of Siemens AG, adds: "We will network machinery, production systems and equipment more effectively using MindSphere and our automation platforms. This way, VW, suppliers and machinery producers will be able to leverage the potential of production data even more effectively. It will be possible to make production more efficient and flexible, and further improving product quality.”
Siemens is contributing its expertise in automation, the networking of machinery and plant, and the world of industrial IoT. Apart from the apps of the MindSphere platforms, this capability will include industrial edge solutions. As a result, production data will be processed directly by equipment and machinery, or in the production process, before being transmitted to the VW Industrial Cloud.
Siemens and MindSphere partners also offer apps for the predictive maintenance of machines with optimised maintenance cycles calculated in advance. Via the cloud, these can be rolled out to all VW plants. It will be possible to control VW’s production environment and supply chain even more efficiently because connected suppliers and machinery producers will also benefit from the data analysis.
With the VW Industrial Cloud, which is being developed jointly by Amazon Web Services (AWS), the Volkswagen Group is laying the foundation for the seamless digitalisation of its production and logistics. In the long term, this activity will also include the integration of VW’s global supply chain.