KEX Knowledge Exchange AG has started a consortium study on "Advanced Data Analytics" in Aachen on June 1st.

Aim is to provide the participating companies with a clear picture regarding their business potential on leveraging data assets generated by their products, services, production and business processes. The study will also explore relevant ecosystems and help find the right partners to successfully launch new data-driven business models. Furthermore, in the study we will analyze technological challenges in applying advanced data analytics to the identified opportunities and we will develop technological concepts and business cases on how to bring these opportunities to reality.

The project is conducted together with a strong team of experts from Fraunhofer IPT and different institutes of RWTH Aachen University: the Laboratory of Machine Tools and Production Engineering WZL, the Institute for Industrial Management FIR and the Institute for Information Management in Mechanical Engineering IMA. Partners such as Demonstration Factory Aachen will support providing real data on which to validate the explored potentials.

At the first consortium meeting participating companies ranging from mid-size to very large companies in diverse industries such as machine and plant engineering, metalworking and the chemical industry have identified that many challenges faced at the moment are very similar between them. Identified focus topics include the management of big data from products stretched far out in the field, challenges on using data analytics for product data as a component supplier and how to overcome them, and using analytics to optimize not only single production sites, but complex production networks.

The study will run until April 2018. Participation in the study is still open to interested companies fitting into the consortium.