Dirk Voigt and his team from Production and IT have a major task: in the future, they will ensure that data from all Volkswagen Group facilities flow together in a powerful data platform, the Digital Production Platform (DPP). They are gradually integrating the facilities. In total, the company has more than 120 production sites worldwide that are to become part of the large industrial cloud. The advantage: the more information is available from machines, plants and systems, the more efficiently the factories can organize their production. Since the start of the Corona pandemic, however, the team has faced a problem: business trips are taboo. The experts cannot enter the facilities which they are bringing into the cloud.
Strong through the covid crisis
These experts build
the industrial cloud from home

In the future, a digital platform will network data from all Volkswagen Group plants. The aim is to make production more efficient. The expansion is continuing apace even during Corona times – with digital means.
The race to catch up begins in Hanover

Despite the pandemic, we achieved our goals. The whole team was super involved.
A quarter of a year after the Corona crisis began, the Hanover plant becomes part of the DPP. “That was proof that digital onboarding works. Just a few weeks before, I wouldn’t have thought it possible,” says Voigt. Over the course of the year, 13 more European factories from Zwickau to Mlada Boleslav are added. Before the end of the year, the team also connects the first North American plants belonging to the Volkswagen brand.
“Despite the pandemic, we achieved our goals. The entire team of employees from the central offices, IT and, above all, the plants, made a super contribution,” says Voigt. What makes this team special is that IT experts from Volkswagen are working closely with specialists from Amazon Web Services. Together with the US company, Volkswagen has been building the Industrial Cloud since 2019. Integration partner Siemens has also been involved since the very beginning.
More digital, faster, more flexible
In the meantime, says Voigt, digital onboarding is more than a substitute – in terms of speed and flexibility, it is even superior to the previous process. One example: the so-called Maturity Check. At the start of every project, experts check whether a plant’s computer systems are ready for the cloud – or whether the IT infrastructure needs to be rebuilt before onboarding. “In the past, that tied up three people for three weeks. Today, we have developed processes in which we accompany plants through this process using digital methods. It’s also faster now. A lot of it has already been tried and tested,” says Voigt. In the online process, he adds, it is also easier to get reinforcements at short notice. “For example, if we need an additional expert for a training session, we bring them in for a few hours. No one has to go on a business trip for that.”
Less travel – less CO2
In 2021, the team plans to bring a large number of additional sites onto the platform. It is already clear that digital onboarding will remain the norm even after the pandemic is over. Voigt: “I’m happy when we can meet our colleagues at the sites again. But that will be much less frequent than before Corona.”
This topic was first published by Volkswagen Newsroom on 01/14/21.