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Numerous political and economic interests are involved in the cooperation. The number of players involved is correspondingly large. The exchange was initiated by the German Ministry of Economics and the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).

The experts involved come from German and Chinese standardization institutions, companies and trade associations. Together, they are developing proposals for the standardization of Industrie 4.0 - the digitalization of industrial production. The sub-working group emerged from the German-Chinese Commission for Cooperation in Standardization (DCKN), which was founded in 2011. It promotes joint standardization and the removal of technical barriers to trade between the two countries.

Technical leadership is provided by the German SCI 4.0 and the Chinese Intelligent Manufacturing Standardization Administration Group (IMSG). The SCI represents the German Institute for Standardization (DIN e.V.) and the German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (DKE) on the German side. On behalf of the BMWi, the Global Project Quality Infrastructure (GPQI) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH coordinates the activities and advises all participants.

Since 2017, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) has been supporting the international harmonization of national Industrie 4.0 concepts through SCI 4.0 with the "GoGlobal Industrie 4.0" project, in which the German Standardization Roadmap Industrie 4.0 plays an important role. It defines recommendations for action for national and international standardization and forms a basis for cooperation.

11th plenary meeting of the German-Chinese UAG 4.0

Central dialog mechanism for international I4.0 standardization

More than 120 experts gathered virtually on July 13, 2021, under the guidance of BMWi and MIIT, for the 11th meeting of the German-Chinese Sub-Working Group on Industrie 4.0. Despite the continued impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on German-Chinese cooperation for the second consecutive year, the high quality of work results was maintained. The shift to virtual formats also had a positive effect, enabling a higher frequency of exchanges that led to numerous concrete outcomes. Following the publication of four White Papers during the last plenary session, another four were already close to publication.

During the opening session, Ernst Stöckl-Pukall, Head of the Digitization and Industrie 4.0 Department at BMWi, highlighted the successes of the bilateral collaboration in standardization. He emphasized the potential for Germany and China to work together on solutions for the future of Industrie 4.0 and intelligent manufacturing. He also pointed out that both countries face similar challenges that require joint solutions. The established dialogue contributes significantly to the global harmonization of standards in this crucial field, as effective collaboration on these topics would be difficult without such structured exchanges. He further emphasized that the I4.0 UAG has become a central dialogue platform for identifying standardization needs and coordinating efforts in international committees.

In addition to the reports from the seven technical expert groups, the national standardization roadmaps were a key focus of the 11th plenary session. Guo Nan, Director of the IoT Research Center at CESI (China Electronics Standardization Institute), presented the new "National Guidelines for the Development of a Fundamental Security Standard System for the Internet of Things." These guidelines extend beyond Industrie 4.0, also covering telecommunications and network-related topics. While differences exist between the Chinese national intelligent manufacturing standardization guidelines and the German Industrie 4.0 standardization roadmap, both publications serve to define areas of cooperation. Notably, elements such as the Digital Twin and supply chain integration, which were less prominent in previous versions, have now been incorporated into both national guidelines. This alignment has facilitated meaningful comparisons between the German and Chinese approaches in bilateral discussions.

On the German side, work on a new revision was also underway. As reported by Dr. Jens Gayko, Managing Director of SCI 4.0, progress was being made in two parallel directions. In April 2022, at the Hannover Messe, the progress report on the Industrie 4.0 standardization roadmap was published, documenting the implementation progress of previous recommendations and helping to shape the direction for a future Version 5 of the NRM I4.0. One year later, in April 2023, the fifth edition of the Industrie 4.0 standardization roadmap was officially published.

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In the reports of the seven technical expert groups, it became clear that there will be an even greater focus on collaboration between the activities of the individual expert groups. Not least the topic of the convergence discussion of Digital Twin and Asset Administration Shell (AAS), which was included in the work program two years ago, shows the need to identify joint fields of action and will be published this year as a "Joint Report on DT/AAS". But before that, the "Joint Report on TSN", which will be published shortly, will describe and summarize the basic requirements for ISO/IEC 60802 in a joint, bilateral perspective for the first time in the UAG I4.0. Here, too, international standardization is the addressee.

A uniform understanding of use cases in the context of Industrie 4.0 has already been achieved between Germany and China in recent years. In order to also achieve the harmonization of concepts for the technical expert groups and their specific fields of action by means of use cases, the technical expert group Use Cases will increasingly be available as an "information hub" and take into account the above-mentioned idea of increased collaboration. The UAG working year will be concluded by the "Standardization report on AI in industrial applications" of the AIAIM technical expert group, with the aim of providing a summary overview of the numerous AI-relevant standardization activities with reference to industrial automation at national and international level. 

With the planned publications "Security Tests White Paper for Sino-German Intelligent Manufacturing/Industrie 4.0" and the "Sino-german Whitepaper on functional safety aspects of digital lifecycle management", the coming year also promises to be labor-intensive, but also rich in results. 

During its plenary sessions, the I4.0 UAG also regularly takes a look at forward-looking topics relating to digital transformation. Of particular interest this year was the presentation by Michael Jochem (Bosch) on the topic of collaborative condition monitoring. This use case of the Industrie 4.0 platform describes the added value of digital business models in a data-oriented platform economy. Through the collaborative use of Big Data, all participants can benefit, which in turn enables self-determined action in industrial value creation, i.e. sovereignty.

In 2011, the German-Chinese Commission for Standardization emerged from the working group Standardization of the German-Chinese Joint Economic Committee founded in 1979.

Its objectives are to further facilitate bilateral trade by removing technical barriers to trade, to promote bilateral economic and technical cooperation, to cooperate more closely on standardization issues and to coordinate activities in international standards organizations.

The annual meeting of the Joint Standards Commission thus offers a very good opportunity to further intensify the partnership-based cooperation between Germany and China on standardization policy issues.

Publication: Sino-German White Paper on Functional Safety for Industrie 4.0 and Intelligent Manufacturing

The White Paper sheds light on the Sino-German perspective on functional safety issues in the context of Industrie 4.0/Intelligent Manufacturing. It explains the basic concept of traditional technical safety, which was previously based on mechanical and electronic technology.

Publication: SME Test Bed Program Proposal

The Network Communications and Edge Computing Technical Expert Group of the Industrie 4.0 sub-working group published the SME Test Bed Program Proposal report in October 2020. The document illustrates a proposal to enable SMEs to participate directly in Industrie 4.0 initiatives. The proposal focuses on the use of test environments between manufacturing SMEs from China and Germany to stimulate the transition from old production solutions to solutions for Industrie 4.0 and thereby strengthen the standardization process and the dialogue between all participating standardization bodies. This also includes direct feedback on existing or new standards and specifications.

Publication: Guidance "Use Cases and Applications"

The revised version of the Guidance paper on use cases and applications is published in time for the 10th plenary session. There is a growing international consensus that new standardization activities are useful if the underlying driving use cases are clearly formulated and understood. In this respect, an internationally uniform understanding of use cases in the context of Industrie 4.0 is a central starting point in standardization work. Use cases are an instrument to build a bridge from the driving challenges facing the manufacturing industry to the corresponding possible technical solutions. Use cases also offer the possibility to derive new requirements for standardization. This suggestion has been actively taken up and implemented both nationally, for example in selected use cases of Labs Network Industrie 4.0, and internationally, especially in the context of the cooperation with the USA, China and Japan.

Publication: Examples for Business Scenarios in Manufacturing Industry

Premiere for the joint descriptions of various business scenarios and how these can have an impact on the design of business models in the manufacturing industry in various ways.  The aim of the "Use Cases and Applications" cooperation line is to analyze business strategies and customer needs in the manufacturing industry that manifest themselves in specific customer projects. The findings are compiled in so-called "use cases", which are based on known best practices, e.g. the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA. These facilitate a common understanding of markets, trends, drivers, concepts and solutions and then serve as a basis for formulating requirements for standardization aspects.