Automotive Industry Leaders Form Cofinity-X JV

BASF, BMW Group, Henkel, Mercedes-Benz, SAP, Schaeffler, Siemens, T-Systems, Volkswagen and ZF jointly founded Cofinity-X .

BASF, BMW Group, Henkel, Mercedes-Benz, SAP, Schaeffler, Siemens, T-Systems, Volkswagen and ZF have jointly founded Cofinity-X to accelerate the operation and adoption of Catena-X use-cases throughout the automotive industry.

Cofinity-X aims to operate an open marketplace for applications and provide products and services to enable the efficient and secure exchange of data between all participants of the ecosystem initially focusing on the European market.

Cofinity-X will help to make important progress with the operationalization and build-up of end-to-end data-chains to trace material flows throughout the entire value chain.

Basis for the operation will be the trusted Catena-X and Gaia-X principles ensuring full data sovereignty for data sharing parties in an open, trusted, collaborative, and secure environment.

With the foundation of Cofinity-X, the shareholders BASF, BMW Group, Henkel, Mercedes-Benz, SAP, Schaeffler, Siemens, T-Systems, Volkswagen and ZF initiate the next step in Europe to foster the Catena-X initiative. Cofinity-X strives to be one of the first operating companies which aims to provide products and services for the secure exchange of data throughout the entire automotive value chain.

“As the leading chemical supplier to the automotive industry, we see tremendous opportunities in operating an ecosystem based on standardized digital services and harmonized data models. This will strengthen supply chain resilience, improve transparency, and accelerate the transformation towards circularity and net zero carbon footprints across many material categories,” said Markus Kamieth, member of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF SE.

Future customers will be able to access applications and services to implement use-cases in the automotive value chain such as CO2 and ESG monitoring, Traceability, Circular Economy or Business Partner Data Management.

Approaches for decarbonization: Carbon Footprint Tracking solutions enable concise, accurate calculation and reporting of CO2 values along the value chain. This will allow Cofinity-X customers to stay ahead in Carbon Footprint transparency and derive potential sustainability improvements to play an active role in the global effort to reach net-zero.

Consistent and reliable traceability: Tracing parts and components at any time throughout the entire supply chain starting with raw material and closing the loop with recycled parts.

Circular economy for a sustainable value chain: The recycling of materials is an ever-increasing topic of importance within the automotive industry. The information about the condition of components can be transparently displayed among suppliers and customers to properly re-use parts and components.

Intelligent Business Partner Data Management (BPDM): The BPDM services of Cofinity-X clean and enrich business partner data across the automotive industry. Customers of Cofinity-X thus can benefit from sorted, analyzed, uncluttered, and enriched partner data.

“Increasing requirements to trace all materials throughout the entire value chain is one of the key factors Cofinity-X is built on. We will be an important part of a rapidly scaling ecosystem in which all companies in the automotive value chain can participate equally. Therefore, our product offering will initiate end-to-end data chains as well as generate value for all the participants,” said Alexander Schleicher, managing director Cofinity-X.