IT standards are indispensable for cross-company systems engineering – but which ones are best suited for this purpose? This is the central question addressed by the Standardization Strategy Board (SSB), a joint project of the prostep ivip association and the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). The project group was founded in 2016 with the vision of enabling cross-company Collaborative Systems Engineering (CSE) on the basis of engineering IT standards.
The project group continuously analyzes, prioritizes, and assesses the maturity of IT standards relevant to systems engineering, deriving shared strategies and actionable recommendations for their implementation and application. The goal is to achieve end-to-end coverage of the business objects and interfaces required in the CSE process through appropriate standards – ultimately realizing the vision of the Digital Twin. In addition, the SSB identifies forward-looking trends in product development and the cross-company challenges they generate, feeding these into the relevant committees and working groups.
Key Focus Areas & Concrete Results
In 2025, the SSB's work was significantly shaped by two themes: sustainability and the requirements arising from the development of increasingly software-defined products. From the SSB's perspective, both aspects are exerting growing influence on the entire product lifecycle – not just product development – as well as on PLM IT architectures. This evolution is far from complete; on the contrary, this trend will continue to define the coming years for the foreseeable future.
In the first half of the year, the SSB designed and conducted a survey on the penetration and implementation of regulatory sustainability requirements. The aim was to assess how member companies perceive the importance, awareness, and practical implementation of sustainability topics, and to gauge their views on the relevance of specific regulations and standards in industrial practice.
As a follow-up and complement to this work, the prostep ivip Sustainability Day was held on December 3, 2025, featuring contributions from sustainability officers and speakers with demonstrated expertise in handling these topics in industrial practice. The survey results and insights from the Sustainability Day will be published in a white paper in the first half of 2026.
The topic of software development and its significance for cross-domain PLM processes has been on the SSB's agenda for several years. A dedicated workshop on this subject was held again at the prostep ivip Symposium 2025.
As in previous years, additional Fact Sheets were produced in 2025. The Release Package Fact Sheet was published on the prostep ivip Confluence platform, and the list of available Fact Sheets on the prostep ivip website was updated and expanded accordingly.
A central challenge was the design, execution, and evaluation of the sustainability survey. The primary difficulty was drawing valid and meaningful conclusions despite significantly lower participation compared to earlier SSB surveys.
In 2026, the SSB will bring its work on sustainability to an initial close with the publication of a white paper. The topic of "Standards and Processes for Software-Defined Product Development" will be continued. Two new focus areas will be added: "Meta Data Management in Synchronous Collaborations and Dataspaces" and "Strategy for Lean Digital Engineering Transformation." The creation, maintenance, and publication of Fact Sheets will also continue throughout 2026.
"The SSB has established itself as a body with a stable membership and highly engaged participants. We are pleased that we were also able to initiate collaboration with IT vendors, taking further steps toward the implementation of standards in software products."
"We look forward to seeing the results from the Collaborative Digital Twins project group this year and are curious about the requirements for future collaboration that will emerge at the technical, functional, and organizational levels. We will of course continue and expand our close collaboration with other prostep ivip projects such as the CPO, as well as our engagement with IT vendors. Our clear goal is to further advance the adoption of data standards – both on the user side and among software vendors."
The project group continuously analyzes, prioritizes and assesses the maturity of relevant IT standards in the field of systems engineering in order to derive common strategies and recommendations for their implementation and use. The goal is to consistently cover the business objects and interfaces required in the CSE process with the appropriate standards to realize the vision of a digital twin. The SSB also identifies future trends in product development and the resulting cross-company challenges and brings these to the attention of the relevant committees and specialist groups.
In the past year, the SSB's work was significantly characterized by the topic of sustainability and the handling of materials and substances. From the SSB's point of view, these two topics are not independent of each other, but are closely linked and interdependent. These two highly relevant issues will continue to be a key theme next year.
In the first half of the year, the SSB organized and carried out a survey to determine how the benefits and market penetration of numerous standards are perceived in the companies of the prostep ivip association members. In addition, a study was conducted to determine the factors influencing data collaboration, PLM architectures, participation in prostep ivip project groups and the establishment of standards in industry practice. The results of the survey will be published in a white paper in the first half of 2025.
As in previous years, further fact sheets were prepared in 2024. On December 1, the fact sheet release package was published in the prostep ivip Confluence, and the list of available fact sheets on the prostep ivip website was updated accordingly.
Another focus of the past year has been the evaluation of the relevance of industrial metaverses for product development and the analysis of relevant communities and standardization efforts in the context of industrial metaverses. It was agreed to continue to monitor the development of industrial metaverses.
A technical challenge was the design and implementation of the survey on the relevance of engineering IT standards. The challenge was, on the one hand, to guide the survey participants through the survey and to the standards on which they could make statements based on their individual activities and roles in their organizations.
On the other hand, valid statements had to be derived from the survey results despite the limited and unrepresentative group of participants.
In 2025, the SSB will continue to focus on sustainability and the management of materials and substances, emphasizing the relevance and transparency of regulations and addressing operational challenges such as deriving requirements from regulations, data logistics in the supply chain and the standardized production of sustainability certificates. The creation, maintenance and publication of fact sheets will continue in 2025.
„The SSB has established itself as a board with a stable membership base and highly committed participants. We are pleased that we have now been able to initiate cooperation with IT vendors as well, in order to take further steps towards implementing standards in software products.“
„We are looking forward to the results of the young Collaborative Digital Twins project group this year and are curious to see what the requirements for future collaboration will be at a professional, technical and organizational level. Of course, we will also continue to work closely with other prostep ivip projects, such as the CPO, and also continue and expand our collaboration with IT vendors. Our clear goal is to further promote the use of data standards both on the user side and on the software manufacturer side"
We are eager to help you with any questions concerning your project or selection of publications
TELEPHONE HOTLINE
+49 6151 9287-336
For more inspiration, news and information about prostep ivip.
