The Consortium Lays Out its Roadmap

Konsortialtraffen Autowerkstatt 4.0 Bochum 2022

By Ralf Schädel, IT Editor and Project Manager Cloud Services and Gaia-X at eco – Association of the Internet Industry

For two days, the consortium partners of Car Repair 4.0 worked out the roadmap for their project in various workshops at the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences in Bochum: Among other things, the profile for the operator model and external communications were delineated.

It was a perfect start – that was the consensus among the 30 or so participants at the first face-to-face meeting of the Car Repair 4.0 consortium at the Georg Agricola University of Applied Sciences (THGA). The representatives who attended the two-day event from Auto-Intern GmbH, DEKRA DIGITAL, German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), University of Osnabrück, LMIS AG, THGA, Vergölst Tire+Car Service and eco had previously only met virtually via video conferences since the start of the project at the beginning of the year. A relaxed working atmosphere provided the ideal setting for initial networking and many interesting and constructive discussions in which more detailed project ideas were explored. 

Knowledge transfer on accounting practices for third-party funds

The best example of the lively exchange between the consortium partners was the workshop on accounting practices for third-party funds. The research and industrial partners informed themselves about the respective perspectives on the project and discussed their position on drawing down funds and project accounting practices. Together, they agreed on the “do’s” and “don’ts”.

Presenting the project externally

In the External Communication workshop, the Car Repair 4.0 working groups initially approached the needs and requirements of car repair shops, measurement system providers, and IT service providers via so-called personas, i.e., personalised, prototypical target groups. A strategy has been developed that will initially be disseminated to the general public using various communication measures via diverse channels. The goal: To publicise the funding project in industry circles and position it with clearly formulated core messages!

Status quo of the diagnostic system elicited

Two workshops were dedicated to the diagnostic system: In the morning, there was a technical exchange between the hardware specialists, the diagnostic experts and the AI developers. Here, the focus group on diagnostic system development shared the results of the conceptualisation phase, presented the goal and its differentiation from previous solutions. In the afternoon, the focus was on platform design. Together, all stakeholders further developed the rough concept and recorded needs and interfaces in detail. A Technical Big Picture was also presented to get a better overall picture in the future and develop it continuously.

How practical the diagnostic system already is was tested during measurements in the parking lot of ProLab Product and Production. The project participants wrapped up their first meeting with a shared dinner.

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About Ralf Schädel
Ralf Schädel is an IT editor, speaker, and project manager at eco - Verband der Internetwirtschaft e.V. in the field of cloud services and Gaia-X. For more than 20 years, the publishing editor has been publishing and speaking in the area of editorial communication of daily newspapers such as the Bonner Rundschau and the Kölner Stadtanzeiger, publishing houses such as Medienhaus, where he was the content-responsible editor for the trade magazine IT-Mittelstand and to whose sister publication IT-Director he contributed. He also handled editorial topics at agencies such as Kernpunkt, the digital agency i22 and PR Partner (now Palmer Hargreaves) as well as in corporate communications at Deutsche Telekom. At eco, Ralf is responsible in particular for the communication of the projects Autowerkstatt 4.0 and Service-Meister. His professional profile: LinkedIn, Xing.