The departure from data islands in engineering, building bridges between disciplines and to suppliers, networking, and consistent data flow: these were the buzzwords which cropped up repeatedly throughout the presentations and discussions at the sixth Aucotec Technology Day in November. The event in Munich was attended by representatives from manufacturers of waffle machines to submarines based in locations from Kiel to Vienna. Representatives of such companies as Brückner, TBP, Areva, Haas Food Equipment and R Stahl presented their respective methods for process optimisation.

Although their products are so different, their challenges are very similar. Big data and manual labour or "Excel engineering" have long since ceased to be compatible as digitization, the path to Industry 4.0, requires tools that create an overview, ensure data quality and also support international cooperation. The system platform Engineering Base (EB) from Aucotec, which is used for different primary purposes in each of the five companies, is such a tool.

In their presentations, the practical experts repeatedly stressed the need not only for mechanical and electrical engineering to speak the same language, but also for other disciplines to be incorporated seamlessly without resulting, for example, in nomenclature problems. It should also be possible to manage globally distributed tasks cooperatively and simultaneously without losing an overview, consistency or changes.

The practical examples showed that interdisciplinary work is only really efficient when the cooperating partners work with a common data model, a "single source of truth". The consistency of the processes with the database-driven EB can range from sales via costing to production. "For efficient processes, we have to network in order to use shared resources," was how Michael Eder, Head of CAD/CAM/CAE at Haas Food Equipment, summed it up in a nutshell.

This also includes the seamless integration of engineering into the ERP landscape, a topic on which several speakers reported. Automated interfaces which can be customized to the workflow ensure high transparency on both sides. Another point which was repeatedly mentioned as a prerequisite for efficient engineering was EB's ability for functional orientation and the convenient support of the standard IEC 81346.