PROSTEP to demonstrate the Exchange of CO2 Footprint Data via Catena-X at the Hanover Trade Fair

Decide4ECO is a project selected as part of the Manufacturing-X initiative to create trusted data spaces for the manufacturing industry and is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). The project aims to promote ecological and circular value creation by means of more sustainable products and examine solutions for exchanging information via trusted data spaces to ensure the availability and use of sustainability-relevant information. In addition to PROSTEP, the Decide4ECO consortium includes the Heinz Nixdorf Institute at the University of Paderborn, the IT solution providers CONTACT Software and Nexpirit, the industrial companies BOS, Sonova Consumer Hearing (Sennheiser) and Hadi-Plast, as well as Grant Thornton and Brainport Industries as associated partners.

In addition to an AI chatbot that facilitates interaction with digital product passports, PROSTEP has also developed an Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) for its PLM integration platform OpenPDM as part of the project.

It makes it possible to provide data from connected PLM, ALM or ERP systems in data ecosystems such as Catena-X or Manufacturing-X in an AAS-compliant manner and exchange the data in line with the compliance rules (e.g. usage policy, access policy) of the data ecosystem. The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) serves as a standard for the provision of data and subsequent processing.

"The use of a standardized format like AAS to exchange environmental data in the data space or directly with partners and customers makes it possible for us to combine and evaluate data from different sources," says Olaf Sündermann, Manager Competence Center Mechanics at Sennheiser. "This means that we can help our developers give due consideration to CO2 emissions when selecting materials and components. This will increase the sustainability of our products and the company as a whole and enable us to make this transparent to the end customer with the help of the DPP."

Presentation of the demonstrator at the Hanover trade fair

The consortium partners will be presenting the first demonstrator for a solution that allows sustainability-relevant information to be exchanged between two PLM systems in line with the rules specified by Catena-X and Cofinity-X at this year's Hanover trade fair, which is being held from 31 March to 4 April 2025 (at the Industry 4.0 initiative's booth D26 in hall 8). Specifically, the demo scenario involves the transfer of CO2 values for components between the Sonova subsidiary Sennheiser and the automotive supplier BOS.

The values are managed in the PLM system CONTACT Elements and are transferred via the data ecosystem to project partner Nexpirit's sustainability management software Substantio, which is integrated in Teamcenter. The partners use the time-tested connectors from OpenPDM to access the data in the two backend systems.

The idea is that the exchange between data provider and data consumer via Catena-X takes place automatically. This requires that the partners are known in the data ecosystem and have an identifier (business partner number). In addition, OpenPDM creates the access and usage policies as well as the contractual agreements according to the corresponding templates. If the data consumer requests a CO2 value, the EDC connector compares the policies of the two contractual partners in the background and automatically provides the data – on the condition that the data provider has granted the data consumer the right to use it.

The new EDC connector is an important addition to our comprehensive portfolio of connectors to the most widely used PLM, ALM, ERP systems and other enterprise applications.

It enables companies to make confidential information from their back-end systems available in data ecosystems while still maintaining control over its use. This can not only be sustainability-relevant information but also other product and process data. Leading carmakers are, for example, thinking about using Catena-X to exchange information with their suppliers regarding the suppliers' ability to deliver.

PROSTEP has joined the Catena-X association and is active in a number of different working groups with the aim of providing support for the development of new scenarios and use cases for the automotive industry's data ecosystem.
We are also active in the project advisory committee for the Scale-MX project, which is driving the transfer of project results from the Manufacturing-X initiative forward.

You can find the latest information about Decide4ECO here.

Curious? We look forward to seeing you at the Hanover trade fair (HMI) and discussing how data ecosystems work with you.