Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering
Fraunhofer Institute for Software and Systems Engineering

Current projects for research and industry

Aerospace-X: Ecosystem for an efficient and sustainable Aerospace Supply Chain

As data becomes an increasingly important resource in modern industry, there is a growing need for data-driven solutions to address various challenges. As part of the Manufacturing-X initiative, which focuses on the digitalization of supply chains, Aerospace-X aims to develop a federated and value-added platform for aerospace supply chains. This platform will utilize modern data room technologies to enable data-driven decisions and improve collaboration within the industry.

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Factory-X: A sovereign data space for mechanical and plant engineering

The mechanical and plant engineering industry faces a variety of challenges: a lack of resilience in supply chains, media disruptions in internal factory data and information flows or insufficient digitalization of processes and/or machines. Within the Manufacturing-X project family, the Factory-X lighthouse project explicitly addresses an industry that is of great importance to the German economy: mechanical and plant engineering. A data space is being created for sovereign participation in future-oriented technology for data sharing and collaborative data use.

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proDTM: Process model for neutral data trust models

The use of data across silo boundaries offers many opportunities. Data trust models (DTM) provide data trustees with the framework, the implementation and the technologies to enable the trusting and, above all, neutral exchange of data. DTMs hold enormous potential for data-based innovations in the research, business, administration and social sectors. However, due to the novelty of the concept and its practical application, as well as the legislation associated with DTM, there are still research gaps that need to be filled in order to ensure the acceptance, feasibility and ultimately the added value of DTM.

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DIONA: Digital ecosystem for a sustainable circular economy in the automotive industry

A holistic product life cycle can form a significant contribution to the targeted climate neutrality of Germany by 2045. The "DIONA" project therefore sees the need for a joint development of sustainability measures in order to obtain a holistic understanding of sustainability and challenges. For future sustainable development, it is important to identify best practices in the automotive industry as well as socio-political incentives.

Catena-X Automotive Network: Alliance for secure and standardized data exchange

The supply chain law or the monitoring of a CO2 footprint are only two current challenges of the automotive industry. They require cross-company data usage so that end-to-end value chains emerge. In the Catena-X project, an ecosystem for the entire automotive sector is being established, which will be set up in a highly scalable manner from the very beginning. The core element of the network is a shared offering of federated data and services that enables companies to shorten the "time-to-market" of innovative solutions, use resources more efficiently, and increase the transparency and resilience of value creation processes.

DB Schenker Enterprise Lab for Logistics and Digitization

Innovative logistics solutions and process innovations make a considerable contri-bution to the competitiveness of companies. The DB Schenker Enterprise Lab for Logistics and Digitization established in 2015 accelerates the digital transformation of processes in the concrete business environment of a logistics service provider.

IDS@BKM: Collaborative data use by customers and suppliers – secure, sovereign, and for the benefit of all

Supplier or sub-supplier bottlenecks can have massive technical and economic consequences for automobile manufacturers. However, suppliers hesitate to share information about foreseeable capacity bottlenecks with manufacturers, for exam-ple because they fear disadvantages in price negotiations.

Industrial data management at VW: Not just producing industrial data, but using them

Companies are continuously recording increasing volumes of master, movement, and process data, and using them in numerous business processes. As a result, the intelligent management of these data is increasingly becoming a key success factor in global competition. Obtaining gainful information and effectively improv-ing business processes can only succeed when data of high quality are collected and made available.

Diagnosis Data Management at Thales

Industrial data storage and use is becoming more and more important in increasingly digitizing processes. For example, a company-specific approach to centralized and decentralized data management must be found and operational responsibilities must be clearly defined. A functioning data management system is of strategic importance for business processes such as customer service.

Next to digitization and individualization, automation is the third key pillar of indus-try 4.0. Increased networking in production and logistics is simplifying many pro-cesses. Ultimately they can even be carried out autonomously by special software components (agents). The Legal Testbed provides a simulation environment to support the development of agents by SMEs with a focus on reviewing legal cer-tainty and IT security.

SELE: Silicon Economy Logistics Ecosystem

Digital platforms and their AI are crucial to fully exploit the optimization potential for processes, digital services and new business areas in logistics. In order to achieve this optimally, a decentralized (platform) eco-system is being created in the SELE project, the results of which will be made available as open source.

CCIT: Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technologies

The Fraunhofer Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Internet Technologies CCIT re-searches cognitive technologies for the industrial Internet. Researchers in various disciplines are developing key technologies along the value chain, from sensors to intelligent learning methods in data processing to the cloud. CCIT helps companies with the forward-looking design of their business by opening up market access with cognitive solution services and products.

High Performance Center Logistics and IT: Innovation ecosystem at the Dortmund scientific site

Scientific institutions based in Dortmund that – on their own – are already shaping and driving logistics research today are working together under the umbrella of the High Performance Center Logistics and IT. In the High Performance Center, they are now establishing a national infrastructure and innovation ecosystem in cooperation with industry, not only together but also synergetically – from fundamental research to applied research.

AI-NET-PROTECT: Accellerating digital transformation in Europe by Intelligent NETwork automation - Providing Resilient & secure networks [Operating on Trusted Equipment] to CriTical infrastructures

The »AI-NET-PROTECT« project is concerned with providing automated resilience and secure networks on trusted devices for critical infrastructures and enterprises. This means taking measures to prevent total failure of these networks and infrastructures. The goal of the project is to ensure the protection of critical data, high performance in terms of key performance parame-ters (such as latency, throughput, availability), and high robustness of the network infrastructure (e.g., against manipulation and attacks). These are primarily private networks for the secure site networking of large corporate customers.

HeRaKlion: Heuristic Resilience Analyses for Municipalities Using Data Space Functionalities

Information plays an important role in the prediction and management of crisis situations. This has been shown, among other things, by the Corona pandemic and the increasingly frequent extreme weather events in recent years. Municipalities are faced with the challenge of evaluating the amount of data for use and making the results available to other institutions. In the course of the "HeRaKlion" project, a resilience data room is being developed to make the data for preparing for and coping with crises more accessible and usable.