Sustainability is the big issue of our time. To do justice to it, Europe is focussing on the circular economy, among other things, flanked by numerous regulations. The Digital Product Passport (DPP) plays a key role in achieving this - so that companies can not only fulfil requirements, but also seize opportunities and develop new business models, products and services. If you think big and start small, you can achieve initial positive results in a short space of time with the DPP based on the standardised administration shell (VWS) and successfully prepare for tomorrow today.
It still seems a long way off, but it is still ambitious: The EU wants to achieve the goal of climate neutrality by 2050. In order to reduce emissions of climate-damaging greenhouse gases to net zero, they must be 55% lower by 2030 than they are today. As the production and use of goods, from the extraction of raw materials to final disposal, generates a significant proportion of EU-wide greenhouse gases, the European Union is focussing on the circular economy and placing the goal of climate neutrality in a wider context. Repairable and recyclable products not only reduce the carbon footprint of industry and trade, but also conserve our natural resources in general.
The regulatory wave is rolling
This comprehensive understanding of sustainability will massively change supply chains, industry and trade and shape the entire product life cycle, starting with design - and not just tomorrow, but from next year at the latest, when the new EU Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation (ESPR) comes into force. Although battery production will be the first industry to be affected, this will include all suppliers of preliminary and intermediate products such as steel or chemicals. Other sectors such as consumer electronics, information and communication technology, but also textile manufacturing and the furniture industry will soon follow. And in 2027, the Digital Product Passport (DPP) defined and prescribed in the ESPR regulation will be standard.
Making a virtue out of necessity
So there is not much time left. Manufacturing companies must have prepared digital product passports by the end of 2026. The good news is that all current and future regulations and requirements for greater sustainability involve information and documentation obligations along the entire value chain and for the entire product life cycle.
This common ground paves the way for a joint solution that fulfils all of these obligations: it is called Digital Product Passport 4.0 (DPP 4.0). This is a proposal presented by the IDTA (Industrial Digital Twin Association) together with the German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (ZVEI). Technically, the DPP 4.0 is based on the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) standard.
The core elements of DPP 4.0 are the standardised identification link (ID link), which is attached to the product, and the administration shell with the "Nameplate" sub-model, the Digital Nameplate 4.0 (DNP), which contains basic information about a product, for example its manufacturer, year of manufacture and serial number. Depending on the application, the digital product passport supplements this basic information with manufacturer- and industry-specific information using standardised sub-models such as "Technical Data" or "Carbon Footprint", which is used to document the carbon footprint over the entire life cycle of a product.
Advantages create added value
DPP 4.0 has decisive advantages for manufacturers and consumers alike:
- Standardised: The digital product passport is based on the internationally recognised standards for the digital type plate including access to it (Identification Link, IEC 61406) and the administration shell (AAS, IEC 63278).
- Informed: Thanks to the standardisation of data access, product information is not only available to authorities, but can also be made accessible to other companies and consumers worldwide via the Internet. It is important to emphasise that the company always retains sovereignty over its data and can control access in a targeted manner using established authentication and authorisation methods. This enables suppliers and consumers to make informed decisions about the purchase and use of the product. If, for example, a battery from an electric car is taken out of service, the available information on charging cycles and remaining capacity can be used to determine whether there is another possible use for it in a less demanding scenario instead of disposing of it. For example, the battery could still be powerful enough to serve as an electricity storage unit for a photovoltaic system.
- Optimised: While consumers have a path to more climate-friendly consumer behaviour, suppliers can optimise their supply chain, development and manufacturing, support ESG initiatives and also develop new and more sustainable products and business models.
- Automated: Another advantage is that both humans and machines can read the information in a VWS and interpret it clearly thanks to the semantics stored in it. An automated and standardised exchange of information saves the companies involved a lot of time and money. In addition, the VWS is designed to be scalable, not only in terms of its ability to be expanded with additional sub-models, but also from a technical and infrastructural perspective.
From zero to hero
Companies that want to introduce the digital product passport based on the asset administration shell should take advantage of the built-in scalability of the standard and start small, e.g. with the introduction of a digital type plate for the most important product division. This advantage also ensures that the major goal of fully digitalised, interoperable and transparent value chains is kept in view.
- Potential analysis: As a first step, companies should identify the most urgent and fastest-to-realise application scenarios and their potential benefits. With the help of experienced digitalisation partners, this is possible within just a few days.
- Architecture and process consulting: The next step is the technical conceptualisation of the first defined scenarios. This requires comprehensive architecture consulting that focuses not only on the first DPP, but also on the big picture. This involves determining how the interfaces and system landscape must be designed so that the required product-related data can be automatically extracted from the various, usually heterogeneous, data sources and transferred to the standard data format. In general, this phase serves to answer the numerous questions companies have about the product life cycle, internal processes, access authorisations and the "single source of truth".
- Showcase: In order to get decision-makers on board, software that can be run from the start of the project and an understandable and accessible visualisation of the first digital product passports is the method of choice. If you make the VWS and the DPP tangible and less abstract in the literal sense and deliver initial added value, you will quickly gain supporters for the project in the departments involved and ensure growing enthusiasm for the DPP.
- Implementation: Once the budgets have been approved and the project team is in place, it is time to work through the roadmap. However, it is important that the focus is not on the technology, but on the respective scenario and the added value for the end user. This is why it is so important to involve future users in the project right from the start and to let them try out the first prototype and subsequent versions in order to take their feedback into account in the development up to market maturity and commissioning.
- Optimisation: Digital product passports are embedded in the increasingly digitalised processes of companies. Continuous optimisation should therefore go beyond the immediate intended use and the passport information should serve as the basis for new and improved processes and new business models.
One for all - choosing the right partner
Standards, scalability and reusability - this is the key to amortising investments in digital product passports and administration shells after a short time and achieving positive returns. However, it is also true that the associated technical and procedural tasks are not trivial, but rather demanding and require a great deal of expertise and experience. For example, the heterogeneous and distributed data silos of companies often contain data records that are not properly maintained and sometimes contradictory, which first need to be tidied up and standardised in order to create standard-compliant and semantically clearly described administration shells. There is often still some homework to be done here, but it will be worth it. Companies should rely on competent and experienced partners in the market for the introduction so that the digital product passport is not only a necessary artefact for compliance with regulatory requirements, but also forms the foundation for successful new business models and added value for companies.
Further information is available at www.industrialdigitaltwin.org.
