What most attracted you to the role as Technical Director of the Alliance?
I started my career as a computer engineer and have been very active advising clients as a platform architect for the past few years. I want to achieve specific, end-to-end solutions. Since 2019, I have participated in the Alliance’s working groups, mainly driven by my interest in cloud as a sector. My particular focus is on interfaces and within the Alliance we have started the reference implementation of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS). I was very interested to drive this forward beyond the working group. As Technical Director, I want to successfully advance the pragmatic implementation of the AAS and the connection with the digital twin approach for the members.
What are your goals for the OI4 Alliance?
I have already defined the technical milestones in my previous answer, but of course I’m also interested in people and teamwork. The Alliance is successful, but organisationally it is still very young. We have initiated some working groups, which were at first focused on their topic and industrial sector. I see it as my task to strengthen communication and coordination between the groups. This has already played a role in the reference implementation of the AAS, and I want to continue from there. We have a long way to go together. I compare my goals for the Alliance to the Tour de France. We train for the tournament and then ride the race, which will take us a long distance. We run sprints as an intermediate trial, tackle challenges on the mountain and speed on the flat. We are always challenged as a team so that our members can take the lead and put on the yellow jersey.
How will you support the Alliance develop its external image?
The task of the Alliance is to help its members succeed in the practical implementation of industrial digitalisation projects. We are the practitioners, implementing digitalisation from the factory floor through the entire company across the whole industry. The Alliance creates added value in the sense that it can create something holistically useful out of what already exists. Cooperation is therefore a priority for us, such as with other alliances and committees that define standards. For me, collaboration with the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) will therefore be a priority in the near future. It is already the case that our members, and the people behind them, are involved in several alliances and committees in parallel. Returning to the analogy of the Tour de France: our teams do not compete but cooperate. We work together to make the race work better, to make it faster and to get more and more teams to wear the jersey in the colour of the fourth industrial revolution. That would probably be a very colourful jersey but knitted from one yarn!