The Infrachain Summit focuses on different aspects of blockchain technology. This year the meeting, which was held simultaneously in Bologna, Luxembourg and virtually, addressed use cases in Industry 4.0, the circular economy and creative industries. PROSTEP presented the solution for the tamper-proof exchange of 3D print data developed as part of the SAMPL project.
The Infrachain Summit’s mission is to provide participants with information about the business opportunities that the blockchain offers. The agenda therefore included not only technological and operational aspects but also the topics governance and compliance. A number of concrete use cases that can be taken as best practices for others to follow were presented during the event.
We took advantage of the event in Luxembourg to outline the current status of the industrial implementation of SAMPL in our solution for the tamper-proof exchange of 3D print data and explain the importance of system interoperability. IP protection, providing proof of component authenticity and the documentation of supply chains were also important issues in other application examples. It became clear that in the future the documentation of information and business processes in the blockchain will play a role in providing evidence in legal disputes.
The event in Luxembourg opened with a welcome address by Luxembourg’s Minister of the Economy, Franz Fayot, who highlighted the importance of the digital transformation and the green transition for economic recovery. As he said, this requires innovative solutions in all sectors of the economy and the blockchain is one of them. It plays a key role in Industry 4.0, the circular economy and creative industries. Fayot emphasized the importance of interoperability and know-how protection in this context. This underscores the validity of our strategy of integrating blockchain technology in our OpenDXM GlobalX data exchange solution.
During the panel discussion, the participants discussed why, on the one hand, the number of blockchain applications is also increasing in the manufacturing industry but, on the other hand, there is still a certain reluctance on the part of the industry. Representatives from different companies pointed out that the benefits of the technology are often still not clearly presented and that users overestimate the effort required to implement initial demonstrators.
We are offering blockchain startup workshops to interested parties with the aim of changing this. In these workshops, we explain the technology to them, work with them to identify potential use cases relevant to their company and define the setup for possible implementation.
Please contact me: martin.holland@prostep.com
By Martin Holland