TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture

For larger manufacturing companies, it is a challenge to create a common understanding of the digital future within the company. At TRUMPF , motivated teams actively drove their relevant individual projects forward. The biggest obstacle was aligning them all around a common technological vision to optimally and efficiently support business requirements. To support this vision, TRUMPF has developed an enterprise-wide digital reference architecture, colloquially known as the "Double C Framework". This supports communication between the various teams and enables a targeted alignment of the various technology initiatives. The TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture serves as a common language between the digital product development teams and the IT project teams at the operational level, as well as a strategic steering tool for top management.

Authors: Arun Anandasivam , Cornelius L?ffler & Tom Schneider

Challenge – the Need for Architecture?

• In the past, enterprise IT was the dominant software in the world of manufacturing companies. The main focus was on developing machines (i.e. hardware as the core business). Software played only a minor role by enabling machine functions or offering separate software products in addition to machines. Due to the rise of IoT and increasing software influence on machine functions, the software in core products now plays a crucial role in managing smart factories by connecting products together and moving toward cloud services. This shift therefore calls for more focus on software (product IT).
• A reference architecture from the industry communities is not suited to the (internal) needs of TRUMPF. It has a strong IoT focus on integrating with other partners. However, a starting point is to have a solid internal view on the overall architectural landscape of TRUMPF.
• As similarly started by Gartner in its two-speed IT article, TRUMPF must bring both software worlds together and effectively manage their interaction: the customer-oriented software product world (incl. IoT) driven by business units and the company-internal software world driven by the Enterprise IT department.?

Architecture – TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture?

The TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture closes the gap between product IT and enterprise IT by addressing all layers of TOGAF within a single framework so that we have a common language and big picture for entering into deep-dive discussions together. It is not solely a technical reference architecture, but also has elements of (customer-relevant) processes and outlines broad data flows between the two IT worlds.?

The TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture is also internally known as Double-C-Frame due to its inverted C in blue on the left and the blue-green C on the right (see Figure 4).The two “Cs” arranged back-to-back and provide the core structure of the TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture, which consists of three major architecture areas:

1. Left-side “C” in blue: the perspective of the products and services offered by TRUMPF to its customers’ smart factories (product world). To get more information about this perspective please contact Panos Dimitropoulos and Dr. Philipp Dreiss .
2. Right-side “C” in green: TRUMPF internal core value chain (enterprise world). Expert for the internal TRUMPF core value chain is Cornelius L?ffler .
3. Connecting column in the middle: combining product architecture and enterprise architecture with essential architecture building blocks relevant for both worlds.?The connecting link to both sides creates Arun Anandasivam & team.

The architecture landscape in Figure 1 is a conceptual view that consists of architecture building blocks (ABBs). ABBs provide a dedicated scope of functionality and comprise different technologies used to offer these functionalities. Nevertheless, the customer is the focus of all our activities, which is shown by the light-blue block spanning the very top from left to right. The left side represents the TRUMPF customer’s view on its value streams within their smart factory (see light blue and grey arrows). In the past decades, traditional physical machines were surrounded and enhanced by software for machine control, lightweight human machine interfaces and CAD-programmable systems. However, this serves only as a starting point to building a smart factory. Machine connectivity, edge computing and Industrial IoT back-end technologies unlock the potential to interact in new ways with the customer.?

Smart factory services are only possible if the product architecture of customers is integrated into the TRUMPF enterprise architecture. Hence, the right side of the TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture outlines the perspective of TRUMPF’s internal value chain with customer relevance. This illustration represents the end-to-end company value chain. The TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture is structured in the primary value streams “Idea to Market”, “Lead to Order to Cash” and “Issue to Resolution.” The primary value streams are enabled by supporting activities or secondary value streams (human resources, supply chain management or financial services). All value streams are enabled by process and data leading systems clustered in cross-industry system categories. Within a manufacturing company, these are: Product Lifecycle Management system (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning System (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), CRM Service (or Field/Customer Service Management System) and Master Data Management (MDM).

From an architecture perspective, it is mandatory to utilize the data managed in these systems to develop the digital services. For example, information about the purchased machines per customer, service cases performed or purchased license agreements are core data objects to develop digital services. Additionally, the process leading enterprise systems are essential to manage the digital services across their lifecycle from development in combination with physical machines, digital sales channels via MyTRUMPF, entitlement management to invoicing. The core of the TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture is the column in the center. It is an essential part that connects the customer’s perspective of the smart factory (product architecture) on the left side with the traditional enterprise architecture of a manufacturing company on the right side

Within this framework, architecture platforms are developed to not only support the digital ambition of TRUMPF to develop digital services for customers, but it also enable the internal digitization of TRUMPF’s value streams. The overall architecture strategy beneath the ABBs, such as the cloud platform, data management, API and ID management, analytics and AI, and digital user touchpoints (customer UI), is based on the following hypotheses:

• Highly adopted enterprise standard platforms accelerate the digital ambition due to a common foundation and reduced initial efforts per initiative.
• Cloud technologies and cloud-based enterprise platforms are key to scale and innovate.
• Loosely coupled systems and composable architectures are elementary to adaptability to new requirements and to managing complexity.
• Data management and data architecture are key to easily combining data of multiple sources and to providing fast and reliable access to data consumers.
• Common User Interfaces (UI Library) are core to create a convincing user experience.
• IT and Information Security are essential in every architecture and require enterprise standards.

If you want to learn more about the TRUMPF Digital Reference Architecture, just download the document via the following source LINK or contact the authors directly.

With this all said, the connection to a future data space is even more important. Common understanding and standards like umati , omlox ( Steffen Dosch , Eberhard Wahl ) and many more are key to the success of a data space such as ManufacturingX . Klaus Bauer and Ingo Sawilla are main contact persons for ManufacturingX at TRUMPF .