BASF SE (Ludwigshafen; www.basf) and SAP SE (Walldorf, both Germany; www.sap.com) announced the start of a project at BASF's Ludwigshafen site to evaluate digital collaboration among business partners in the domain of engineering and maintenance.
SAP Asset Intelligence Network, a cloud-based collaborative network, will provide BASF with a digital data connection to multiple original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and service providers and their respective asset data. The project's goal is to establish a fully integrated and centrally managed asset information repository, helping ensure data consistency and availability.
By establishing such a single source of truth for asset information, BASF aims to further improve the efficiency of its engineering and maintenance processes throughout the asset lifecycle.
"BASF constantly works on optimizing its sites, plants and production processes," says Andreas Wernsdörfer, senior vice president Technical Site Services Ludwigshafen, BASF. "SAP Asset Intelligence Network is an approach that has the potential to further improve our engineering and maintenance processes by establishing a fully integrated digital information chain between OEMs, service providers and BASF over the whole asset lifecycle. A more integrated digital approach with our business partners would allow us to easily access the latest and current information when and where needed, leading to quicker and better decision-making and, in consequence, higher asset effectiveness."
"With SAP Asset Intelligence Network, we enable our customers to collaborate in a digital ecosystem to manage intelligent devices in the Internet of Things (IoT) and achieve their goals for operational excellence," says Tanja Rueckert, president IoT and Digital Supply Chain, SAP. "Working with industry leaders like BASF, we aim to establish a network of real-time industrial asset information so that our customers and their partners can realize the full advantages of the IoT with the SAP Leonardo digital innovation system."
The evaluation project is expected to run for several months. It is part of "BASF 4.0", a global project that drives the digital transformation of BASF.