Open Industry 4.0 Alliance partners with Packaging Valley

The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance is working with Packaging Valley Germany e.V., a cluster of organizations from the packaging industry in South Germany.

The common goal of both associations is the practice-oriented transformation of companies to cross-platform Industry 4.0. Joint working groups will implement standards for practice and develop best use cases in the packaging industry. 

Photo: Packaging Valley Germany.

“OEMs from the packaging machine industry in particular can use the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance as a joint platform to develop interoperable Industry 4.0 products for their customers in the pharmaceutical, medical, food and consumer goods sectors,” said Marius Grathwohl, Chairman Industry Focused Workgroups, Open Industry 4.0 Alliance and Vice-President, Digital Products and Transformation, Multivac Group. “We place great emphasis on teamwork and there will be regular exchanges with Packaging Valley’s ‘Technology Trends’ working group and representatives of the Alliance.”

The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance sees potential in line-related services and in bringing together data and information from an entire production environment. The goal of integration without manual intervention can be accelerated through the development of concrete application scenarios for the packaging industry.

According to the associations, the applications are primarily:

• Master data management: Uniform structuring and presentation of the connected operating resources (assets), with joint application or integration of the concept of the management shell as an essential step in the transformation.
• Plant analytics: Analysis of overall equipment effectiveness and condition monitoring, both across individual production lines and entire production, so that there is more transparency regarding the efficiency of a production plant.
• Information on predictive maintenance for machines from different manufacturers. Displayed in a dashboard, users learn when a machine is in danger of failing. This results in fewer maintenance breaks and reduced downtime.

Photo: Packaging Valley Germany.

“By cooperating with the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance, Packaging Valley expects even more implementation orientation and very practical projects,” said Sabine Gauger, Chairwoman, Packaging Valley Germany e.V. and Managing Support Manager, Optima Gackaging Group GmbH. “Companies like Balluff, Harro Höflinger, Murrelektronik and Optima are already members of both Packaging Valley and the Alliance, so cooperation on concrete use cases is an obvious step. For us as a packaging industry cluster, this cooperation offers the potential for real added value.”