The EU funds the DATA SPACE 4.0 project to identify common principles for sharing manufacturing data at the EU level, set the pathway towards a common manufacturing data space and bring together a European community for data spaces 4.0.

The DATA SPACE 4.0 project, a consortium of 14 partners coming from a wide range of industry sectors and associations is meeting in Milan the 17^th of November. The Digital Factory Alliance is part of this strategic consortium led by INNOVALIA, funded by the Digital Europe Programme from the European Commission that till December 2023 will prepare manufacturing industry for the deployment and scale up of European common data spaces. DATA SPACE 4.0 will support manufacturing industry to shape future data spaces to effectively address the economic, technical and business challenges set by industrial data sharing and the Data Act. The project will focus on 2 very specific data value chains, namely agile supply chains and dynamic asset management and predictive maintenance. DATA SPACE 4.0 will explore the role of data spaces in 5 key manufacturing sectors for this type of data value chains and explore their role to facilitate the implementation of Digital Product Passports for circular manufacturing.

In preparation of the World Manufacturing Forum (WMF) that will take place in Brescia 25^th and 26^th of November, the DATA SPACE 4.0 consortium is setting the foundations and first steps for the establishment of the Data Space 4.0 Alliance, a community that will bring together a variety of stakeholder including national Industry 4.0 initiatives, European data space think tanks, industrial associations, knowledge and innovation networks, data 4.0 model standardisation initiatives and European networks for SME digital transformation. The Data Space 4.0 is an Industry 4.0 community born to join European and national efforts and create a unified voice and a shared pathway and governance model for scale-up of cross-sectorial data spaces for manufacturing.

The Data Space 4.0 Alliance is a lighthouse project to coordinate and steer a multi-stakeholder governance model for data spaces deployment in manufacturing., driven by the National Industry 4.0 initiatives, sustained by the Digital Factory Alliance (DFA) and supported by a number of European Data Space and Industry 4.0 stakeholder communities.

The Data Space 4.0 Alliance will support the community collaboration to align and set the foundations for a harmonised, yet autonomous, roll out and scale-up of a sovereign European manufacturing data spaces and manufacturing data networks. The Data Space 4.0 alliance is open to all the digital and manufacturing community concerned with unlocking new data-powered business models and develop rich data value chains in manufacturing products, factories and supply chains.

Data-sharing is key on the industry development

We are currently experiencing a more digitalized era where massive data are of huge importance on the economic trends and technologies. The use of data has been involved on most of the improvements on the manufacturing domain, different European initiatives have targeted this data-driven approach in order to put on the market new tools for data-sharing on manufacturing.  Over the last few years, the companies have experienced an overwhelming amount of data which hasn’t been safeguarded, used or shared. On the industrial world the data sharing is crucial due the different processes and efforts put in place to create the final product.

One of the main concerns on the data-sharing is the lack of standardization and to ensure the trust and control of data usage in data exchange. Here, the data spaces and its standardization become crucial.

The DFA Data Space 4.0 Alliance with the support of the newly established European Data Space Support Centre (DSSC) aims at creating a global reference blueprint safeguarding and guaranteeing data sovereignty, security, availability, trust, confidentially and integrity, all with a strong focus on the manufacturing sector and European digital values.

The Data Space 4.0 Alliance will ensure that companies will have a set of comprehensive tools, reference practices and assets to ensure the pan-European cost-effective implementation of their next generation connected manufacturing processes.

Data Space 4.0 Alliance should ensure that such AI-powered manufacturing processes relying on collaborative data sharing across manufacturing data networks are aligned with the many European and national initiatives supporting the development of European common data spaces for manufacturing.

Building up a data space European community

The Data Space 4.0 Alliance brings together different partners and contributors in order to create a unified voice and share a common pathway and governance model for scale-up of cross-sectorial data spaces for manufacturing.

The objective of this European community is to join efforts and identify common principles for sharing industrial data throughout Europe. To have a shared goal will inspire the collaboration of the community which will set the foundations for a harmonized manufacturing data space continuum.

The outcome expected of this community is the creation of a European Data Space 4.0 Alliance and Multi-Stakeholder Governances Model for data spaces in manufacturing, where the participants can contribute and nurture the community with new strategies, models and use cases. The Alliance will also maintain a Minimum Viable Product for data spaces 4.0, consolidate a reference framework for smart data models 4.0, a directory for accessing up to date information about assets, toolkits and blueprints for data spaces 4.0 and a data space 4.0 canvas integrating data value chain strategies, business models, incentive schemes and best practices for data spaces 4.0.