16 March 2022
Project progress, use cases and possible business models were the focus of the second EuProGigant milestone meeting in Darmstadt. In addition to an overview of the project status, the participating partners from Austria and Germany discussed questions about the cooperation with the Gaia-X Association and how EuProGigant represents its own Gaia-X compliant ecosystem. The event was accompanied by workshops, in which the business requirements for the digital ecosystem were elaborated from a project perspective.
EuProGigant – a key project for Gaia-X
Prof. Matthias Weigold, head of the Institute for Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) at the TU Darmstadt, opened the milestone meeting on 10 March, 2022, in the university’s Wilhelm-Köhler-Hall with special thanks to the committed project partners and the funding authorities. In his welcoming speech, he emphasized the importance of the research project, which aims to build a cross-location, digitally networked production ecosystem. Dr. Dominik Rohrmus, Chief Operating Officer of the Gaia-X European Association for Data and Cloud AISBL, also underlined the important role of EuProGigant as a Gaia-X lighthouse project and signpost for a competitive, European industry.
Solutions for the European manufacturing industry
In four thematic working groups, the project team is designing a total of seven use cases that address important problems in the production industry:
- CO2-footprint in production engineering and manufacturing: providing CO2 equivalent data in the product design phase to influence the carbon footprint in product manufacturing
- Validation platform: cross-company cooperation to create a database from test stands for condition monitoring
- Component matching: optimised, data-based combination of assembly components
- Mobile processing machines: processing and usage of large data amounts in the mobile use of machines
Markus Weber, Head of Research at PTW, presented the working groups and their progress in detail, informed the participants about the current project status and gave an outlook on upcoming working packages.
Data-driven business models
How can future, data-driven business models work in the context of Gaia-X? Felix Hoffmann, research associate at PTW, addressed this question in his short presentation. He highlighted important parameters and processes that are significant in the development of new business models and presented initial approaches on how the exchange of information on Gaia-X and its payment could be implemented. In terms of the future course of the project, the team will develop a suitable business model for each use case and also focus on designing possible payment mechanisms and pricing strategies. Benjamin Brockhaus and Stefan Dumss, research assistants at PTW and the Institute for Mechanical Engineering Informatics and Virtual Product Development (MIVP) at the TU Wien, respectively, gave participants insights into the digital architectures of Gaia-X and the EuProGigant use cases.
The next milestone meeting is scheduled for 28 September, 2022.
