Catena-X

Creating space for collaboration in the automotive industry

With the Catena-X Automotive Network e.V., the automotive industry has launched an initiative to establish common standards. The vision: a trustworthy, collaborative, open, and secure data ecosystem where all users can share information from the entire value chain or lifecycle of vehicles. The Digital Twin Registry, a tool from the Bosch Semantic Stack portfolio, provides the digital foundation for these collaborative data spaces. It allows digital twins to be created and managed in a decentralized manner. All data from the various phases of the product lifecycle can be brought together in a digital twin via the registry. The Digital Twin Registry has received the official certification from Catena-X. This makes it the first and so far only registry to meet the necessary interoperability and quality standards to gain access to the Catena-X data space.

Data sovereignty thanks to Digital Twin Registry and Aspect Model Catalog

The use of a decentralized Digital Twin Registry makes it possible to share information from different companies while maintaining the respective data sovereignty. Each user in the data space only shares what he or she wants and what is necessary for the respective use case. The user's own data always remains in the company's own registry and is protected from unauthorized access. The same applies to the Aspect Model Catalog, another Bosch Semantic Stack tool that manages aspects and aspect models. Here, too, data sovereignty is retained, while aspects and aspect models can be made easily available in the data space at the same time.

The use cases from the Catena-X network

The Digital Twin Registry enables companies to create and manage digital twins. It is the entrance ticket to numerous use cases both within the own company and across company boundaries in the Catena-X data space. There is a wide range of possible use cases for flexible supply chain management. The focus is on both sustainability and data sovereignty.

Digital twins ensure traceability along the entire supply chain

Maximum efficiency thanks to a fully connected factory

Digital twins ensure traceability along the entire supply chain

From raw materials suppliers to OEMs, supply chains in the automotive industry are long and complex. Even if the data basis for seamless tracking often already exists, the information is still stored in globally unconnected data silos. This is where digital twins come into play: they form a unique digital representative of a real component and bring all threads together. Within the Catena-X network, all information from the individual suppliers is connected with each other so that supply chains or entire value networks are transparent, and each individual product is 100% traceable. Data sovereignty is maintained, as each user has full control over access.

Learn more about the use in case in this video.

Product Carbon Footprint: working together for more climate protection

Greenhouse gas emissions are generated from the extraction of raw materials to the use and recycling of a product. To calculate the Product Carbon Footprint (PCF), i.e. the individual impact of a product on the climate, all data from the entire lifecycle must be collected. This is a major challenge, especially in the case of durable components from the automotive industry, where numerous suppliers are involved. Moreover, without a standardized methodology, the figures are insufficiently comparable. The solution from Catena-X: semantic data homogenization via digital twins. It allows data from all lifecycle phases to be collected and harmonized – from thousands and thousands or even millions of products. In addition, Catena-X provides the central specifications for the calculation of the PCF in a separate rulebook. This ensures optimal comparability.

Learn more about the use in case in this video.

The digital product passport for an efficient circular economy

The circular economy enables the optimal (re)use of raw materials and is a central tool for the environmentally friendly use of resources. However, the shift from linear value chains to a circular economy focused on waste avoidance requires close cooperation within the automotive industry. In addition, there is a need for common standards to create the necessary transparency within the value network. One element is the digital product passport, a self-updating collection of information on each product based on digital twins. Recycling companies can extract all the relevant data in order to efficiently return the raw materials it comprises to the cycle. This is particularly important for products that contain a large quantity of valuable resources, such as batteries for electric vehicles, which are playing an increasingly important role in the automotive industry.

Learn more about the use in case in this video.