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Siemens will be the integration partner for Volkswagen’s Industrial Cloud, according to a joint announcement by the two companies.
Just a few days ago, German car maker Volkswagen AG and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced a strategic partnership to create an “Industrial Cloud” with the goal of improving productivity in Volkswagen‘s 122 plants worldwide. Now additional details are starting to emerge – including a large role for automation-supplier Siemens.
According to Siemens, the company will contribute its expertise in automation, networking, and the industrial IoT in its cooperation with Volkswagen. This will include solutions for the industrial edge and applications developed for MindSphere, Siemens’ cloud platform, which will be hosted by AWS. This allows production data to be processed directly by plant-floor machinery before they are transmitted to the Industrial Cloud. In this way, Volkswagen expects to optimization complex production processes across all of its plants.
As an example, developers can offer applications for predictive maintenance that run on MindSphere that eventually can be rolled out easily via the Cloud to other plants. In addition, Cloud adds can help Volkswagen control its production environment and supply chain more efficiently when connected suppliers and machinery producers share information gained from data analysis.
Volkswagen says that, with this initiative, the company is laying the foundation for the seamless digitalization of its production and logistics. In the long term, this will also include the integration of Volkswagen’s global supply chain with more than 30,000 locations of over 1,500 suppliers and partner companies. In future, the Industrial Cloud will also be available as a platform for other partners.
David Humphrey, ARC Advisory Group, commented, “Cloud-hosting has become a popular alternative for many companies as a cost-cutting measure. Instead of investing in their own expensive IT equipment, companies of any size can instead trust the hosting of their software for a flat fee to an experienced IT provider that makes space available on remotely-located server farms. The provider not only makes space available, it can also offer a wide range of additional services, diagnostics and analytics that help companies extract more value from their software. Another important feature is that cloud-hosting consolidates software in a virtual location, allowing access by plants in any location – a much cheaper solution than individual roll-outs in each plant.”