Twenty Companies Join New Industrial Digital Twin Association

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VDMA and ZVEI have founded the "Industrial Digital Twin Association" (IDTA) as a user organization for Industrie 4.0 together with Bitkom and 20 companies from the mechanical and electrical engineering industries. The aim of the association is to bring together the parallel development strands towards the industrial digital twin and to develop it as an open source solution together with the member companies. Users benefit from the early insights into the digitization of industrial products. This reduces effort, integration time and costs in the own value creation.

Core Technology for Industrie 4.0: The Digital Twin
In Industrie 4.0 applications, the digital twin serves as an interface between the physical industrial products and the digital world. This enables the continuous data availability to be mapped along the entire life cycle from product planning and development, production and commissioning to use and recycling. This is associated with potential for new business models for small and medium-sized factory equipment manufacturers as well as for large end users, for example in the automotive and process industries.

Added value through joint user organisation
The new user organisation IDTA operates active technology management and coordinates and strengthens the interests and investments of the participating actors. Dr. Matthias Bölke from Schneider Electric was elected chairman. Deputy chairman is Dr. Horst Heinol-Heikkinen, owner of Asentics. "The excellence of German and European industry in the development of industrial products is recognized worldwide. Now is the time to design the digital ecosystem around these products worldwide with the same high quality standards", says Hartmut Rauen, Deputy Executive Director of the VDMA.

"We are faced with the unique opportunity to shape the digital value creation in industry for the next decades through the shoulder-to-shoulder cooperation between the mechanical and electrical engineering industries. And this will benefit almost all sectors of the economy, from producers to end users," adds Gunther Koschnick, Managing Director of the ZVEI Automation Association. "We are pleased that through the VDMA and ZVEI we have been given a neutral, yet industry-oriented, global platform that will carry the core technology of the Digital Twin for Industry 4.0 as an open source solution into the world," emphasizes Frank Melzer, who as head of the steering committee of the National Platform Industrie 4.0 was one of the initiators of the association's founding.

Well-known companies among the founding members
This challenge requires joint international action. Besides the VDMA and ZVEI, the founding members are ABB, Asentics, Bitkom, Bosch, Bosch Rexroth, Danfoss, Endress Hauser, Festo, Homag, KUKA, Lenze, Pepperl Fuchs, Phoenix Contact, SAP, Schneider Electric, Schunk, Siemens, Trumpf, Turck, Volkswagen and Wittenstein.