9th International ECLASS Congress
Cologne | September 27, 2023
Meet the experts and share experiences
Meet us in Cologne! We bring you together with specialists, innovators and successful practitioners from the fields of master data management and digital standards.
At this year's ECLASS Congress we are again offering an interesting and varied program with a large number of use cases and best-practice examples from the fields of engineering and automation, as well as Building Information Modeling (BIM) or the chemical or electronics industry.
"The conference is one of the top events in the field of Digital Twin, Smart Manufacturing and Digitalization."
A special focus this year is on the possibilities of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), through which various networked systems and applications can exchange information without errors.
The congress is aimed at specialists and executives from the areas of development, planning, production, operations, logistics, automation and IT, as well as all digitalization drivers.
Around 250 international participants will have the opportunity to discuss all aspects of open standards, make new contacts with decision-makers from industry, trade and engineering, and learn about exciting innovations in the Industrie 4.0 environment.
As a result of the very positive experience from the last digital congress, the Congress is now planned as a hybrid event and will be held in English to enable interested parties from other countries to participate.
Agenda
In a series of 12 thematically diverse and interesting lectures, top-class speakers from industry, trade and science offer thematically varied and interesting presentations on the topics of Master Data Management and Industrie 4.0 - tailored for beginners and experts.
Please find further information in our agenda!
Speakers

Head of Engineering
BCON² GmbH
Senior Architect
ECLASS Head Office
After studying mechanical engineering with a focus on IT in engineering (2009-2014), he worked as research associate at the Chair of Production Systems at the Ruhr University Bochum until 2018 and managed various digitization projects. At the same time, he completed his dissertation on the topic of data integration for the automation of simulations for planning support.
Since 2019, Christian Block is the contact person at the ECLASS head office for technical development, data models and questions from the areas of Digital Twin, AAS and Industrie 4.0. Since its founding in 2021, Christian Block is responsible in parallel as Head of Engineering at BCON² GmbH, for the new and further development of all products offered, which support, among other things, the creation of BMEcat and Asset Administration Shells.

Head of Technology and Innovation Management
Siemens AG
Annika Hauptvogel has been Head of Technology and Innovation Management at Siemens since June 2021. In this function she is responsible for the strategy of Siemens Technology. She reports directly to the CTO of Siemens AG.
Annika Hauptvogel began her career at Siemens Mobility GmbH in 2015. In her former position she was responsible for the development of digital services for rail systems.
Annika Hauptvogel holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Technical University of Munich and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from RWTH Aachen University.

Program Manager Product Data
PHOENIX CONTACT GmbH & Co. KG
Gerald Lobermeier leads the program “Product Data for Customers”. The inclusion of the Digital Twin is becoming increasingly important when providing product data to customers. As a specialist for the digital infrastructure in the company, Mr. Lobermeier focuses on the consistency of digital data and data continuity.
He has also been active in committees such as ECLASS for over 15 years. At ECLASS, Gerald is the head of the cross-expert group “Building Information management”
Managing Director
Paradine GmbH

CEO & Owner
Class.Ing
Frank Scherenschlich studied electrical engineering in Paderborn and Canada. After a few years as a senior manager in the ECOMMERCE and PIM area, start of self-employment as an engineering office, then foundation of Class.Ing. Responsible for the areas sales, data management and project planning. Driver for the implementation of future topics.
Intensive collaboration on various topics of standardization and digitization, including committee work. Diverse activities in the ECLASS environment of content work, technology and process optimization.
Class.Ing is an SME in the field of standardized article data management. The company offers extensive, but also specific consulting, software and data services from a single source. The in-house software Class.Room relies on the use of classifications and offers functions for mapping to other standards as well as version conversion. Interfaces to SAP and other PIM systems are available.

Master Specialist Classification
PHOENIX CONTACT GmbH & Co. KG
Josef Schmelter has been with PHOENIX CONTACT GmbH & Co. KG since 1997 and is responsible for the topic of classification. Within the scope of this activity, he is active in committees of ECLASS e.V. and IEC, among others, to ensure the provision of standardized product data for the systems used by customers. This includes the provision of data for the e-procurement system up to the use of data for the engineering tools.
Since 2001, Mr. Schmelter has been involved in various working groups to build and update product classes and their properties and has been active in ECLASS CEG CAx since 2008, to integrate the requirements from engineering tools into the data model. Together with the team of the product data management system, the data managers and data maintainers, the processes and systems are continuously developed to support the customers.

Business Owner
EPLAN GmbH & Co. KG
Markus Schneider, born in 1974, studied electrical engineering in Cologne after completing his professional training as an electronics technician. After his trainee period in the automotive world, he initially joined OSRAM as a development engineer, where he moved to product management in 2010. Today (since 2019), he works as a business owner at EPLAN in the Master Data division.

Head of Department Product Information Management
ifm electronic gmbh
1986 – 1989: Studied electrical engineering at the University of Applied Sciences Bochum (FH BO)
1990 – 1991: Product specialist for evaluation electronics / control technology, ifm electronic gmbh
1992 – 2003: Technical editor (Technical documentation), ifm electronic gmbh
2004 – 2015: Project Manager eProcurement, ifm electronic gmbh
2014 – 2015: Project Manager PIM, ifm electronic gmbh
2015 – today: Head of Department PIM, ifm electronic gmbh

Vice President and Head of External Cooperation
Siemens Technology
After graduation in Aeronautical and Aerospace Technology Dieter Wegener worked as scientist at DLR (German Aerospace Center). After four years as consultant for McKinsey he joined SIEMENS in 1996 as Head of Gasturbine Engineering at “Power Generation”.
During his career within SIEMENS he had different responsibilities: personal Assistant for an Executive Board Member, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) for Business Division “Industry Solutions” and VP & Head of R&D-Organization “Advanced Technologies & Standards (ATS)” for Industry Sector.
Since 2016 Dieter Wegener is VP & Head of External Cooperation at SIEMENS Technology.
Additional he is active in external roles like
- Chair of ZVEI Management Circle “Industrie 4.0” (since 2014)
- Vice-President DKE (since 2015)
Registration
No matter whether you want to participate on site or follow the live stream. In both cases, registration is mandatory.
How to find us
This year's ECLASS Congress will take place at the German Economic Institute (IW) which is located in the center of Cologne, just a few minutes' walk from Cologne Central Station.
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