DIGITALEUROPE’s Digital Manufacturing Executive Council signs Declaration defining the path for Europe’s global leadership

Today, over a dozen senior executives from the membership of DIGITALEUROPE signed a declaration setting a clear path for the EU’s global leadership in Digital Manufacturing.

DMEC applauds the European Commission’s vision and goals at its Industry Days and has heard the call to support these efforts. Harnessing technological enablers such as artificial intelligence, high-performancecomputing, digital twinning and 5G is key to the success of the EU’s manufacturing sector.

They presented their recommendations to both the European Commission and the European Parliament to become a high-level platform for policy makers to consult and discuss the future of the EU’s digitalmanufacturing sector.

Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, Director-General for DIGITALEUROPE said:

“The EU has many critical success factors for the manufacturing sector to be world class and we need to act with a sense of urgency to take advantage of the opportunities of the digital transformation. The continued leadership of this industry depends on digital to pave the way towards the next generation of manufacturing: Manufacturing 5.0.”

“The lack of digital skills in our workforce remains a serious, but not unsolvable, issue. In the next 5 years, by working together with Members States and companies across Europe, we should have completed retraining 20% of the workforce. Currently an estimated 52% of workers need some form of reskilling. Enterprises in Europe should be providing digital skills training to an additional 5% of their employees. Today, only 21.4% of all European enterprise do so.”

“Technology is an enabler to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, waste and vital resources not only in our manufacturing processes but through the products we are creating. In the next five years, Europe should have saved 26 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions by digitising resource-intensive sectors. According to estimates, 15.8 billion can be saved from the electricity sector, 9.9 billion from the logistics sector, and 540 million from the automotive sector alone.”

Supporting information on the declaration:

Key goals by 2025

1. The EU has a regulatory framework that allows the manufacturing sector to lead internationally as well as stimulates the development and deployment of key enabling technologies
2. The EU has developed a Digital Manufacturing ecosystem that leads on innovation and competitiveness
3. The EU is generating and enhancing investment in the Digital Manufacturing ecosystem and enabling technologies
4. The EU is a leader in creating high-value data-driven services and in sharing data across Europe and the world
5. The EU is continuously reskilling and upskilling its workforce to embrace digital production processes
6. The EU has accelerated sustainability and green growth through new industrial technology solutions

Signatories of DIGITALEUROPE’s Digital Manufacturing Executive Council Declaration are:

• Håkan Andersson, Head of Technology Strategy, Ericsson
• Arnaud Bacros, Managing Director Enterprise, Dell EMC
• Markus Borchert, Senior Vice President, Nokia
• Alain Dedieu, Senior Vice President, Schneider Electric
• Greg Kinsey, Senior Vice President, Hitachi
• Oğuzhan Öztürk, Chief Technology Officer, Arçelik
• A.Ş.Harald Schöning, Vice President Research, Software AG
• Patrick Sjostedt, EMEA Regional Business Leader, Microsoft
• Alain Tropis, Senior Vice President, Airbus
• Jeroen Van Godtsenhoven, Managing Director, SAS
• Dieter Wegener, Vice President, Siemens
• Walter Weigel, Vice President, Huawei European Research Institute