Do you understand Industry 4.0?

This enables the interaction of a wide range of partners in the IoT (Internet of Things) and in Industry 4.0.

Thanks to the so-called PPMP protocol (Production Performance Management Protocol), small and medium-sized companies, for example, can transfer data from their sensors supplied to manufacturers to the production systems of large companies quickly, easily and securely.

The protocol is freely available and free of charge. This reduces hurdles to entry into networked manufacturing.

"Open standards are one of the basic prerequisites for taking advantage of Industrie 4.0 opportunities.

This means that everyone can participate in the exchange of data. This increases interoperability, enables new business models and increases the competitiveness of all companies involved".

"In this way, Industry 4.0 is establishing itself more quickly and more broadly: Large and small companies can integrate their products more quickly.

This benefits industry in Germany and the economy worldwide."

The standard developed by Bosch experts supports Production Performance Management (PPM).

This process plays a central role in Industry 4.0. In production, huge amounts of data are collected and analyzed with the help of sensors.

The goal is to further improve production processes. In order to be able to control production processes in the best possible way, the numerous sensors and machines at one location must supply their data to the central PPM software.

This is very complex, because so far all these machines and sensors speak many different languages. Communication among and with each other is difficult.

Bosch has developed the PPMP so that machines and sensors can communicate better.

Open source enables progress for everyone. The new standard will be further developed in the Eclipse open source community. This will also incorporate the first practical experiences.

This means that the protocol can be used by anyone free of charge. This initiative launched by Bosch is already supported by several medium-sized companies (Balluff, EGT, Rampf, Cadis, KLW, Schmalz).

The initiative is open to additional members.