The BMW Group presented current fields of application for the Catena-X data ecosystem at the Hannover Messe on Wednesday. With CO2 real data from the production of the iconic kidney grille of the BMW iX, the company is mapping an entire data chain together with partners and suppliers for the first time. The company also demonstrated the benefits of data-driven quality work.
"The radical new collaboration approach of Catena-X will enable us, the BMW Group and our partners, to improve our value creation processes in the context of sustainability, supply security and quality, while also saving costs," announced Oliver Ganser, Vice President Digitalization of the BMW Group's purchasing and supplier network and Chairman of the Board of Catena-X e.V. at the Hannover Messe. "The more national and international companies that join, the greater the added value for everyone involved," added Ganser.
Catena-X is making its way into production.
At BMW Group Plant Landshut, the company is piloting data-based energy consumption measurement in the production of an entire component for the first time. "Together with our partners, we are calculating the product carbon footprint of the kidney grille of the BMW iX using the Catena-X data ecosystem," explained Sabrina Schrangl, Project Manager Catena-X BMW Group Component Production. The iconic kidney grille of the BMW iX is an ideal field of application due to its complexity.
The determination of the PCF is based on the Catena-X set of rules and includes all emissions generated during the manufacture of the product from "grade-to-gate" - starting with the extraction of the raw materials, through the emissions caused in the emissions caused in the supply chain, through to the manufacturing processes at the production site. For this purpose, the partners use the Catena-X certified CO2 application from Siemens AG, which enables data exchange based on the Catena-X calculation logic and connection between the BMW Group's Landshut plant and Covestro AG, supplier of high-performance plastics.
In the future, all data will be recorded up to the end of the life cycle ("cradle-to-grave") in order to enable a cross-industry circular economy in the long term.
Catena-X enables improved quality at the BMW Group through a data-driven rather than hardware-based approach.
The data ecosystem enables smooth data exchange by introducing a common "language" for all companies along the automotive value chain enables a smooth exchange of data. Catena X members can use this data to carry out an early warning analysis based on field data for their quality assurance. The BMW Group is currently exchanging data on the particle sensor and steering gear with Robert Bosch GmbH, among other things. This allows patterns and anomalies to be detected up to four months earlier, often before a fault occurs. In the future, the aim is to replace alternative channels for collaboration with Catena-X in order to enable resource-saving and rapid implementation in quality assurance.
