Challenge: Inconsistent methodologies and lack of data transparency hinder accurate calculation and comparison of product carbon footprints.
Catena-X

Goal: Provide a standardized approach for calculating and sharing product carbon footprint data across the automotive value chain.

Solution Approach: Adopt harmonized data models and digital twins to collect and exchange emissions data, ensuring comparability and compliance with environmental regulations.

Benefit for User: Ability to identify emission hotspots, implement targeted reduction strategies, and demonstrate environmental responsibility to stakeholders.

Challenge: In unpredictable shortage situation fragmented communication and limited visibility among suppliers and customers hinder the timely identification and resolution of supply bottlenecks in complex multisourcing scenarios where multiple suppliers or customers are involved for the same material.

Goal: PURIS aims to enhance the efficiency and resilience of modern supply chains by standardizing the short-term exchange of key supply chain information between suppliers and customers. By providing a lightweight and reusable framework, PURIS seeks to integrate all tiers of the supply chain into a cohesive information flow, enabling proactive management of potential bottlenecks and fostering a more collaborative environment.

Solution Approach: PURIS leverages the Catena-X technology stack, including digital twins and data spaces, to facilitate the standardized exchange of critical supply chain data. The approach encompasses:

Standardized Information Objects: Defining and utilizing uniform data models for key supply chain elements such as current stock levels, demand forecasts, and planned production volumes.

Short-Term Focus: Concentrating on a planning horizon ranging from the current day up to four weeks ahead, allowing for timely and relevant data exchange.

Data Sovereignty and Compliance: Employing the Catena-X Governance Framework to ensure that data sharing adheres to privacy, security, and compliance requirements, granting participants control over their data.

Open-Source Implementation: Providing a Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) reference application to lower entry barriers, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), facilitating widespread adoption.

Benefit for User: By adopting PURIS, users can expect:

Enhanced Visibility: Achieving a shared, real-time view of supply and demand situations across the supply chain, even in complex multisourcing contexts.

Proactive Bottleneck Management: Identifying potential supply disruptions early, allowing for timely interventions and adjustments to mitigate risks.

Improved Planning Accuracy: Utilizing up-to-date and standardized data to refine production and inventory planning, leading to more efficient operations.

Cost Reduction: Minimizing costs associated with production downtime, expedited shipping, and excess inventory by maintaining smoother processes and regular turnover.

Increased Delivery Reliability: Enhancing the ability to meet delivery commitments through better coordination and responsiveness to changes in demand or supply conditions.

Challenge: Limited visibility across the automotive supply chain hampers the ability to trace components and materials, leading to difficulties in quality control and compliance.

Goal: Establish end-to-end traceability of parts and materials throughout the entire value chain to enhance transparency and accountability.

Solution Approach: Implement e.g., digital twins for components and materials, enabling standardized data exchange and real-time tracking across all tiers of the supply chain.

Benefit for User: Enhanced ability to quickly identify and address quality issues, improved compliance with regulations, and strengthened trust among supply chain partners.

Challenge: Disparate and inconsistent business partner data across systems lead to inefficiencies and errors in collaboration.

Goal: Ensure consistent and accurate business partner information across the network to streamline interactions and transactions.

Solution Approach: Implement a centralized system that consolidates business partner data into a 'Golden Record,' maintained through unique identifiers like the Business Partner Number (BPN).

Benefit for User: Improved data quality, reduced administrative overhead, and enhanced collaboration efficiency with up-to-date partner information.

Challenge: Delayed detection of quality issues due to fragmented data and lack of standardized communication between business partners.

Goal: Enable early detection and resolution of quality problems by facilitating seamless data sharing and collaboration across the supply chain.

Solution Approach: Utilize standardized semantic models and data sharing protocols to exchange quality-related information, allowing for prompt root cause analysis and corrective actions.

Benefit for User: Reduced warranty costs, minimized production disruptions, and improved product reliability through proactive quality management.

Challenge: Volatile demand and capacity constraints disrupt supply chain stability and responsiveness.

Goal: Enhance supply chain resilience by enabling proactive management of demand and capacity fluctuations.

Solution Approach: Facilitate secure and collaborative sharing of demand and capacity data among partners to anticipate and address potential bottlenecks.

Benefit for User: Improved planning accuracy, reduced risk of supply disruptions, and increased agility in responding to market changes.

Challenge: Limited information on product composition and lifecycle impedes recycling and reuse efforts, affecting sustainability goals.

Goal: Facilitate a circular economy by providing comprehensive product information that supports recycling, remanufacturing, and reuse.

Solution Approach: Develop digital product passports using digital twins to store and share data on materials, components, and product history throughout the lifecycle.

Benefit for User: Enhanced resource efficiency, reduced environmental impact, and compliance with circular economy regulations through informed decision-making.


Example: Battery Passport

Challenge: Lack of standardized information on battery composition and lifecycle hinders sustainability and regulatory compliance.

Goal: Provide a comprehensive digital record of battery data to support transparency, sustainability, and end-of-life management.

Solution Approach: Create digital twins for batteries that capture and share data on materials, manufacturing processes, usage, and recycling pathways.

Benefit for User: Enhanced ability to monitor battery performance, facilitate recycling, and comply with environmental regulations through accessible and standardized information.

Challenge: Global automotive supply chains are complex and opaque, making it difficult for companies to ensure that suppliers comply with environmental and social standards. Increasing regulatory requirements (e.g., the German Supply Chain Act and EU Due Diligence regulations) demand greater transparency and accountability regarding labor conditions, human rights, and environmental impact.

Goal: To provide transparency and verifiability of environmental and social compliance across all tiers of the automotive supply chain, enabling companies to assess risks, report reliably, and fulfill legal and ethical obligations.

Solution Approach: Catena-X provides a standardized, interoperable framework for collecting, sharing, and evaluating sustainability-related data from suppliers. The ESS use case focuses on secure, sovereign exchange of information such as audit results, certifications, and risk indicators. It uses trusted data spaces, digital identities, and harmonized assessment frameworks to ensure comparability and trustworthiness.

Benefit for User: Improved visibility into sustainability practices across the supply chain; support for regulatory compliance (e.g., LkSG, CSRD, EU CSDDD); reduced reputational and operational risks through early risk detection; efficient data collection using standardized questionnaires and automated processes; strengthened supplier relationships based on shared values

Challenge: The automotive industry generates vast amounts of material waste and faces increasing regulatory and environmental pressure to reduce resource consumption. However, there is limited transparency about the material composition and lifecycle of parts, making it difficult to enable reuse, remanufacturing, or recycling.

Goal: To enable data-driven circular economy practices in the automotive sector by providing transparency into material flows, enabling the identification, reuse, and recovery of components and raw materials throughout the product lifecycle.

Solution Approach: Catena-X facilitates a trusted, interoperable data exchange across the value chain. The Circular Economy use case builds on standardized digital product passports, material traceability, and lifecycle data sharing. Through the network, partners can access relevant information about components (e.g., materials, condition, origin), enabling more efficient end-of-life strategies and circular design.

Benefit for User: Enhanced material transparency to support circular strategies; reduction of waste and raw material dependency; cost savings through component reuse and recycling; compliance with upcoming EU regulations on sustainability and digital product passports; new business models based on remanufacturing, refurbishing, or material resale

The Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) is a pivotal component enabling secure and sovereign data exchange within Catena-X. It acts as a bridge between participants, facilitating the negotiation and enforcement of data usage policies. EDC ensures that data providers retain control over their data, specifying conditions under which data can be accessed and used by others. This mechanism upholds the principles of data sovereignty and trust, allowing for controlled and compliant data sharing across the ecosystem.

The Digital Twin Registry (DTR) serves as a decentralized catalog for managing and discovering digital twins within the Catena-X network. It enables participants to register their digital representations of assets, making them discoverable and accessible to authorized parties. By providing standardized interfaces and metadata, the DTR facilitates interoperability and integration of digital twins across different systems and organizations, enhancing collaboration and data-driven decision-making.

The Knowledge Agent is a service designed to facilitate efficient and secure data exchange using semantic technologies. It standardizes data from various sources into unified formats and manages complex dependencies to ensure seamless communication and data retrieval. By employing semantic knowledge graphs, the Knowledge Agent enhances the understanding and accessibility of complex data structures, supporting advanced analytics and decision-making processes within the Catena-X ecosystem.

The Business Partner Number (BPN) Issuer is a service responsible for assigning unique identifiers to each participant within the Catena-X network. These identifiers are crucial for maintaining consistent and unambiguous references to business entities across various services and data exchanges. By standardizing partner identification, the BPN Issuer enhances traceability, accountability, and seamless integration among diverse stakeholders in the automotive supply chain.

The EDC Discovery Service facilitates the identification and connection of Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC) endpoints within the Catena-X network. It provides a registry where participants can publish and discover EDC instances, enabling efficient data exchange between authorized parties. By streamlining the discovery process, this service enhances connectivity and interoperability, allowing participants to locate relevant data sources and establish secure communication channels effectively.

Catena-X employs a decentralized Identity and Access Management (IAM) system, grounded in the Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI) paradigm. This approach empowers each participant to maintain control over their digital identity through verifiable credentials stored in identity wallets. These credentials encapsulate essential attributes such as company name, address, and tax number, ensuring authenticity and trust within the network. The SSI framework facilitates secure authentication and authorization processes without relying on centralized authorities, thereby enhancing data sovereignty and interoperability across the ecosystem.

The Item Relationship Service (IRS) enables the creation and management of data chains that represent the relationships between different items or components in the supply chain. By leveraging digital twins and standardized data models, IRS facilitates traceability and transparency across multiple tiers of the supply chain. This service is instrumental in supporting use cases such as regulatory compliance, quality management, and sustainability by providing a comprehensive view of product lineage and dependencies.