WORKGROUPS


Groups that
ACTUALLY work.

The workgroups of the OI4 Alliance are the technical backbone of our community, driving the development, integration, and standardization of solutions that enable interoperability across industries.
They provide a structured approach to address challenges in Industry 4.0, ensuring companies can efficiently implement digital solutions.
By bringing industry leaders, suppliers, and operators together, our workgroups translate real-world challenges into organized, collaborative efforts that lead to practical and scalable solutions.
From edge
to cloud

Application
Management (AM)
The Application Management Workgroup is focused on ensuring software interoperability and security within the Open Industry 4.0 ecosystem by developing best practices, requirements, and processes for managing applications across different platforms and ensuring their authenticity, integrity, and effective deployment.
“We want to achieve true interoperability for application management and provisioning for industrial IoT edge software. Processes and interfaces across the software supply chain for IoT applications need to become simple, convenient, and CRA-compliant for all stakeholders.“
— Dr. Marek Meyer, Hilscher
“Our goal is to provide customers with software solutions that help them overcome the challenges they face in the daily operation of their machines, while ensuring the greatest possible interoperability of these solutions. In the “Application Management” working group in particular, we are making an implementation-oriented contribution to the issue of standardization and interoperability within the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance, which is so important to Emerson.”
— Hendrik Priemer, Emerson
“For us, the OI4 is a driver for the adoption of standards. Choosing the right ones, trying them out and recommending them to others is the core of the application management working group. This is where we at FLECS are happy to contribute our expertise.”
— Samuel Greising, Flecs

Component Supplier (CS)
The Component Supplier Workgroup focuses on integrating digital services from component suppliers into the value chain of different industries, ensuring that these services are aligned with the Open Industry 4.0 concepts and Architectural Guardrails, and supporting industry-specific use cases through collaboration with machine builders, operators, and other stakeholders.
“The Component Supplier Workgroup provides us with a collaborative platform to develop innovative, standards-based solutions alongside other industry leaders. The seamless integration of our digital services into diverse industrial value chains is crucial for enhancing efficiency and driving innovation.”
— Christoph Baschnagel, Dunkermotoren
“Physical components are the foundation of any application, making their Digital Twin an essential part of its digital counterpart. Collaborating with peers in this workgroup enables unified solutions that drive greater value for our customers.”
— Thomas Weisschuh, AS-Schneider

Digital Twin (DT)
The Digital Twin Workgroup focuses on creating and integrating interoperable digital twin capabilities within the Open Industry 4.0 ecosystem, enabling asset-centric collaboration, seamless data exchange, and secure management of digital twin data across various systems and stakeholders.
“The working group ‘Digital Twin Concept’ provides the perfect framework not only to discuss innovative and value adding ideas around the topic of Digital Twins, but also to prepare and initiate their implementation in practice.”
— Rüdiger Fritz
“In the working group, we discuss current concepts and challenges related to the standardized digital twin (AAS) as the main concept to ensure interoperability for relevant Industry 4.0 use cases. The objectives are best practices and guidelines to bring the use of standardized digital twins into production and thus drive the implementation of Industry 4.0 among OI4 members and their customers.”
— Michael Riester, Endress+Hauser

Industrial Cyber Security (ICS)
The Industrial Cyber Security Workgroup focuses on defining and integrating comprehensive industrial cybersecurity requirements across all layers of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance’s Architectural Guardrails, ensuring that security is embedded by design in all systems, processes, and applications within the IIoT ecosystem.
“.…”
— Björn Jansen, secunet
“.…”
— Andres Prieto, Wibu Systems

Open Edge Computing (OEC)
The Open Edge Computing Workgroup focuses on defining and implementing standards-based requirements for an Open Edge Computing platform within the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance, ensuring interoperability between edge devices, applications, and other layers in the alliance’s Architectural Guardrails, while integrating security and facilitating cross-layer communication.
“….”
— Konrad Heidrich, Hilscher
“The Open Edge Computing Working Group plays a key role in Industry 4.0 and IIoT by connecting OT with the cloud and enabling efficient, decentralized data processing at the edge. This reduces latency, enhances security, and allows for faster responses to industrial processes. Through our collaboration, we drive standardized, interoperable solutions that sustainably accelerate the digital transformation of the industry.”
— Thomas Weinschenk, Endress+Hauser

Remote Device Management (RDM)
The Remote Device Management Workgroup focuses on enabling and integrating remote device management functionalities within the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance ecosystem, ensuring seamless management of devices across the architecture for tasks such as software updates, provisioning, and disaster recovery, while supporting interoperability and compliance with industry standards.
“The Remote Device Management Workgroup creates transparency in existing device management methods across the industry and helps to identify gaps where we can make meaningful contributions. Addressing these gaps allows us to develop comprehensive and interoperable device management solutions for our customers.”
— Vitaliy Volevach, Siemens
“As the Remote Device Management working group at the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance, we enhance transparency in device management, bridge gaps in standards, and guide the integration of existing solution in new standards. Our goal is to enable cross-vendor device management, especially to meet upcoming security regulations.”
— Martin Flöer, Weidmüller

AI COMMUNITY
The OI4 AI Community brings together members who work on applying AI in industrial environments. It serves as a shared space to exchange knowledge, align on approaches, and explore concrete opportunities for using AI across the value chain. The community is built on two pillars: strategic enablement, which covers AI strategies, roadmaps, quick wins and organizational readiness, and practical implementation, where members develop and refine real-world use cases.
“AI is not just a tool for shopfloor automatization but also for business model transformation”
— Tobias Butsch, Novazoon
“Empowered people, the right technology and a holistic data foundation are the key ingredients for a successful AI-based transformation in manufacturing.”
— Jan Nowak , Comsysto Reply