V4Smart establishes fully digitalised battery cell production with MHP. Photo: Porsche AGA forward-thinking industrial initiative is taking shape in Nördlingen, where
V4Smart — a joint venture between
Porsche and
Varta founded in March 2025 — has established a fully digitalised production operation to manufacture the country’s first cylindrical lithium-ion cells for the automotive sector. The facility, developed in collaboration with
MHP and the Porsche Werkzeugbau Gruppe, is built on a software-defined manufacturing (SDM) approach, supported by technology partners including SAP, AWS, and Cybus.
The entire IT architecture was implemented in just 10 months, even before the company was officially founded, enabling flexible, software-controlled production processes that can be rapidly adapted to changing requirements. This agility has led to increased efficiency and innovation in manufacturing.
Federico Magno, Group CEO at MHP, said: “The project demonstrates how digital twins can elevate production to new levels of innovation, performance, agility, and efficiency. Data availability from the digital factory enables precise, targeted control of the start of production — without compromising quality or speed. It is impressive proof of how partnership-based collaboration in software-defined manufacturing drives excellence with tangible impact.”
The greenfield production facility in Nördlingen was conceived and realised within a year. Designed to produce high-performance cylindrical cells of world-leading quality, the plant is the first of its kind in Europe to mass-produce such cells, achieving an output of 80 parts per min. The technical infrastructure had to be created quickly and was designed to be highly automated, digital, fast, and adaptable.
Greenfield production facilityMarkus Wambach, Group COO at MHP, said: “Speed was the name of the game in this major joint project; and we were able to make sure of this because we adopted a highly agile approach to the project from the outset in order to come up with the process design and commission the system, enabling us to provide a timing guarantee up to the start of production. Within just 10 months, we created a lean, modern, and scalable IT infrastructure for establishing a greenfield production facility.”
The rapid implementation was made possible by clearly defined interfaces between the MES supplied by Porsche Werkzeugbau Gruppe and the systems integration handled by MHP. Real-time data communication ensured no delays due to interface interactions.
Pictured right: digital factory at V4Smart in NördlingenV4Smart selected MHP as its implementation partner based on its extensive experience in IT architecture, cloud infrastructure, and digital twin technology, as well as its proven track record in factory digitalisation using SAP S/4HANA and MES systems. Dr Walter Heibey, partner at MHP and lead architect of the project, explained: “The consistent implementation of a cloud-only solution significantly helped to accelerate the project. As a result, the software-defined manufacturing approach was able to demonstrate the value it adds in a quick and targeted manner. By integrating SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud and SAP DM, the fully digitalised processes needed for production, logistics, and quality have been made available. Using the lakehouse — based on AWS — all data points of each cell were monitored in real time during commissioning to guarantee the quality of the cells.”
Flagship project and benchmarkHenning Hiebsch, partner at MHP and project lead for V4Smart, added: “V4Smart stands for innovation, speed, and digital excellence — a flagship project and benchmark for the industry. Within just a few months, we have created a factory that demonstrates how software-defined manufacturing is redefining production. With the digital twin, physics on the shopfloor and data beat in perfect synchrony — interconnected, processed in real time, and fully adaptable. This project proves that when technology, flexibility, agility, teamwork, and vision come together, true future is created.”
The SDM approach enabled the implementation of company processes within 10 weeks, fully integrated with SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud as the central ERP tool. The emphasis was placed on maximum standardisation and the use of preconfigured processes.
Lutz Kramer, CEO at V4Smart, said: “Within a very short space of time, MHP, together with V4Smart and Porsche, was able to improve the data quality to such an extent that a switch to mass production was possible. The throughput rate stands at 80 battery cells per minute. In order to achieve this figure, the monitoring of data quality was automated. The generation of a large quantity of high-quality data within a short period of time allows V4Smart to monitor and manage the manufacturing process in real time and avoid digital waste.”
Just weeks after the start of production, V4Smart was already managing its operations with high-precision data analysis. The production of battery cells for the new Porsche 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid was commissioned in record time in April 2025.