Digital Data Package (DDP)

Scope & Objectives 

The development of successful products today relies more than ever on the seamless interaction of the disciplines of mechanics, electrical engineering/electronics, and software, as well as upstream and downstream process steps in product creation. In light of increasing complexity and cross-company collaboration, establishing a continuous, model-based Digital Thread is the central challenge for Digital Twins and AI applications. To achieve this, it is not sufficient to consider only the metadata of overall models. Rather, individual content items — such as requirements, functions, effective geometries, tolerances, or test results — must be accessible and usable by all stakeholders across system and organizational boundaries.

The prostep ivip / VDA working group DDP (Digital Data Package) addresses this challenge by developing and maintaining a semantically interconnected, logical structure for data exchange. It is important to emphasize that a Digital Data Package is not necessarily a bundle of individual files, but a coherent, semantic construct of information and references that comprehensively supports model-based, collaborative development. In 2025, the group successfully elevated its work to the international level through the CASCaRA standardization initiative at the OMG, thereby laying the foundation for broad industrial acceptance.

 

Priorities & Concrete Results 2025 

This year, the focus shifted toward deepening use cases and expanding the information model in alignment with Digital Thread requirements.

Key results of the year include:

• Expansion of Application Scope: New, strategic use cases — including Joining Technology, Sustainability, and the handover to Digital Twins (AASX) — were integrated into the roadmap. Through the onboarding of new members from the BlueHarvest consortium, coverage of MBSE/architecture data exchange and Collaborative Requirements Engineering was strengthened.
• Technical Model Deepening: The information model was significantly extended in 2025 and now covers critical manufacturing details beyond pure geometry, such as fluids, painting & coating, marketing & labeling, heat treatment, and bending specification. This is essential for digital continuity in the Digital Thread toward manufacturing.
• Validation & Dissemination: Digital availability and human readability across formats such as (3D)PDF and HTML were investigated. Furthermore, at the JT Day 2025, it was demonstrated how DDP represents geometry-related information semantically — in particular through the use of JT External Element References.

 

Organizational & Technical Challenges 2025 

The most significant challenges lay in strategic positioning and ensuring technical consistency:

• Agile Collaboration and Trust: Unlike other association working groups, the DDP project team operates as a single, agile project group uniting user companies and software vendors. This requires a high degree of mutual trust and commitment from all participants.
• Strategic Positioning within the Standards Ecosystem: It was necessary to sharpen the unique value proposition of DDP vis-à-vis parallel initiatives such as AASX, and to consistently emphasize the semantic focus in order to clearly articulate the standard's relevance and differentiating characteristics.
• Intensive Working Group Coordination: To maximize synergies and avoid duplication of effort, continuous close alignment with prostep ivip working groups — such as CDT (Collaborative Digital Twins) — was essential throughout the year.
• Industrialization and Adoption: The dominant PLM vendors need to be more actively engaged in collaboration in order to accelerate the transfer of project results into industrial practice and to increase adoption among user companies.

 

Plans for 2026

The planning for 2026 is aimed at consolidation, documentation, and broad industrialization:
Documentation and Visualization: The DDP Recommendation will be updated. In addition, clear representations of the ontology stack will be developed to illustrate the inherent complexity while presenting application areas in an accessible and structured manner.
Focus Use Cases: Work on the specific use cases DDP for MBSE & System Simulation, DDP for Joining, and DDP for Sustainability will be continued.
Demonstration and Methods: Specific methods, reference examples, and demos covering the full DDP lifecycle will be developed and presented.

 

Project Coordination Statement 

"The DDP project group fully achieved its objectives in 2025 and delivered outstanding results. In addition, the working group continued to make a decisive contribution to the standardization activities at the Object Management Group (OMG) under the name CASCaRA. As planned, the Initial Submission represented a critical milestone in this regard. The standardization activities also significantly raised the project's external visibility and attracted new members. We would like to express our sincere appreciation for the outstanding commitment of our members — in particular our Technical Project Lead Michael Kirsch and the project coordination team."

 

Project Leadership Statement 

"The successful CASCaRA activities have confirmed the global relevance of DDP — our focus now turns to the next step: industrialization. In 2026, we will support user companies and software vendors through concrete end-to-end demonstrations and the finalization of our use cases (MBSE, Joining, Sustainability). The close, trust-based collaboration with partner working groups such as LCE remains the decisive success factor in this endeavor."