Recently, there has been growing recognition of the critical importance of supply chain resilience and carbon/GHG tracking and reporting on a global scale. Addressing these global challenges necessitates robust solutions that enhance internationally coordinated efforts.
The concept of a Digital Product Passport (DPP) plays a pivotal role in achieving this goal, particularly for manufacturers in supply chains that sell products to consumers in Europe. By ensuring secure and well-managed industrial data interoperability across both inter- and intra-company manufacturing platforms, the DPP unlocks significant opportunities for enhancing end-to-end industry process optimization. Specifically, it contributes to sustainability, streamlines supply chain processes, and boosts overall productivity.
Motivated by these global business needs, Plattform Industrie 4.0 and its US partner CESMII – The Smart Manufacturing Institute (CESMII), along with Labs Network Industrie 4.0 (LNI 4.0) and the ZVEI, developed a joint demonstrator. Last year, this demonstrator showcased international multivendor solutions for supply chain resilience and carbon/GHG tracking and reporting, all based on the international industrial standards AAS and CESMII SMP. This year’s demonstrator extents the previous showcase and adds an exemplary DPP solution and introduces an additional DPP use case to provide information on the end-to-end provenance of a battery.
First, this document aims at informing interested readers about the challenges and opportunities of the DPP, displaying two different prototypical exemplary demonstrations.
These examples highlight how the DPP can be part of the solution for innovative businesses and economies to adept to the global multi-crisis. Further-more, the DPP is contextualized in the digital ecosystem demonstrating the needs and benefits of international cooperation – presented by the US-German collaboration.