| Complete Description
| Use Case description taken from [1,2,3]. In the consumer area, the increased interconnectivity of users which has made it possible to collect user data has made a whole new range of services possible. For example, navigation systems in our cars not only determine the shortest route, but also the quickest, as the traffic situation is assessed in real time based on movement data from other users. Entertainment media is no longer purchased rather made available as needed using streaming services. The services offered extend beyond simply making the products available. The individual customer receives optimized offers, based on user data: the quickest route during rush hour, or music tailored to that customer’s taste.
Similar developments are occurring in an increasingly interconnected industrial environment. Services that go significantly beyond simply providing a production unit – a contemporary example is leasing – are gaining in importance and are changing the classic value-added processes and business models.Key aspects
At the heart of this application scenario are IT platforms that collect data from product use – for example machines or plants for production purposes – and analyze and process this data to provide tailor-made individualized services. This could include for example optimized maintenance at the proper time, or the timely provision of the correct process parameters for a production task currently being requested. The collected data could be product parameters, for example the machines and plants required for manufacture, the product status information, or data from the production process or the upstream supply process. Even the characteristics of the processed raw materials or the parts of the product could be included. The goal is to use this data as a raw material for optimizing products and production processes and for new services. This can help to not only improve existing value chains but also perhaps create new value-added elements. Effect on value chains
The industrial environment today is influenced in principle by two actors – the product provider (i.e. manufacturers of production facilities and service providers) and the customer (product users, i.e. production facility operators), who work together with varying degrees of intensity. With the introduction of Value-Based Services an additional actor enters the scene, operating IT platforms that it uses to provide new services to both classic partners. This platform operator could be a new element of the value chain, that is, an autonomous company. However, this role could be taken on by product providers by increasing their value added compared with the current situation. Product providers make their product data and parameters available. On the basis of all of this user data, new services can now be developed, such as individual optimized maintenance or specific operating and process parameters that optimize or even expand production capabilities of the existing infrastructure. The companies offering these services (service providers) occupy the interface between the product provider and the user. The result is that the share in the value chain spanning from the product provider to the user can be shifted significantly, compared with the situation today. The user can then distinguish between the products by considering the accompanying services or the possibility of expanding those services even after purchasing the product, and no longer primarily by the (physical) specifications mandated by the product provider. This makes it very attractive for the product provider to use such platforms and to offer new services on them. Value added for participants
In this application scenario the value added for the product provider stems from the availability of a multitude of process data from various application scenarios, which the user can apply to further development of its product port-folio. As an operator of related IT platforms, the product provider can offer new services. In this way, it strengthens customer loyalty and increases its portion of value added.
| Stakeholders | Customer (product user), platform provider, service provider, product provide |
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| AI Features
| Task(s) | Reasoning and autonomous problem solving in the platform, services based on the platform use AI features, e.g. for predictive maintenance, data semantics (cf. [5,6] for an overview) |
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Standardization
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Requirements | Standardization needs for setting up this use case is currently under further investigation. Some initial intentions on standardization needs are the following: For this use case, standardization can be seen as enabler because an agreement on a (small set of) communication protocols would facilitate to connect to the platform and use this protocol also for device2device communication. Since services running on a platform are not aware of an implicit sematic of data sources (machines, sensors, actuators, …), an explicit semantic or a common vocabulary is need describing data and enable reasoning about machine states on premise (on the machine/edge) as well as on the cloud. For cloud2cloud communication and cloud federation, further interoperability standards are required on communication level as well as on data semantics level. |
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| Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure | |