The Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce in Australia and Platform Industrie 4.0 from Germany have signed a cooperation agreement which will see closer collaboration between the two countries in developing modern manufacturing sectors.
The partnership will create opportunities to advance and modernise both countries manufacturing capacity. It will enable the digitisation and linking of manufacturing processes along global value chains and create opportunities to generate economic prosperity.
The German Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Brigitte Zypries, and Minister Sinodinos welcomed the commitment by Australian and German industry groups to work together to prepare our economies for the Industry 4.0 transition.
Minister Sinodinos said the cooperative work under the agreement would be supported by government, industry, and standards and research organisations within both countries.
"I am particularly pleased that the agreement has a strong focus on supporting SMEs in both countries to seize the opportunities offered by Industry 4.0 including through access to a network of test labs.
I would like to thank Jeff Connolly, Chair of the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce and the Taskforce members for their efforts to date" Senator Sinodinos said.
To capture those benefits, the partnership will focus on bringing consistency to open international standards, helping SMEs transform their businesses, cyber security, workforce planning, education and training.
Platform Industrie 4.0 (Germany) and the Prime Minister’s Industry 4.0 Taskforce (Australia) have agreed to cooperate across five work streams, representing key challenges in the transition to Industry 4.0:
- reference architectures, standards and norms;
- support for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs);
- Industry 4.0-Testlabs;
- security of networked systems; and
- work, education and training.
The agreement fulfils a recommendation by the Australia-Germany Advisory Group relating to collaboration to increase leadership on digital transformation, including the development of global Industry 4.0 standards. The agreement also forms part of the broader cooperation between Australia and Germany on science and innovation.
