Closing the quality loop – from vision to implementation
Volker Albrecht reflects on the future of quality management solutions
Nearly all manufacturers, no matter their location, size or market segment, recognize that the key to an improved competitive position is to continue their digital transformation journey – and they realize that they need to get specific about it. In many cases today, this pursuit focuses on driving quality into every corner of product development. “Our customers and our partners all recognize the importance of quality, that it needs to be considered from product design up through execution,” says Volker Albrecht, CEO of Siemens Digital Logistics and Business Line Head in Digital Manufacturing. “And when you think about trends toward circularity and sustainability, end-to-end quality is needed more than ever before.”
Not only has Volker Albrecht’s professional journey informed his vision for this holistic, end-to-end quality, but it also reflects Siemens’ approach to digital manufacturing. Beginning his career in Siemens Factory Automation Solutions, Albrecht shifted his focus to software as VP Strategy, Portfolio and Product Management Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM). Then, when the company acquired its digital logistics portfolio and determined that these offerings belonged with the software unit, Albrecht was nominated as CEO of Digital Logistics. And while he continues in this role, he is also responsible for key products in Siemens Digital Manufacturing – including quality management.
“I’m a living example of what the company wants to achieve with Siemens Xcelerator as a whole,” Volker Albrecht says. Siemens Xcelerator is the digital business platform for logistics, digital manufacturing and the rest of Siemens industrial software portfolio. “We are bringing things together that belong together to see how much more value we can add for our customers. That’s basically my story as well.” He is now helping to bring the latest technologies, including industrial artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud deployment, to bear on the quality and compliance initiatives of Siemens customers.
Pursuing quality as ONE Tech Company
To Volker Albrecht, quality is part and parcel of the continuous workflow he and his teams seek to implement. In this respect, Albrecht’s work is not split between the dual roles he now serves. Instead, he pursues a unified mission across logistics and digital manufacturing, as well as any technologies these domains touch. This reach includes products from Siemens and from numerous technology partners.
This all-encompassing view is now shared across all Siemens businesses through the recently launched ONE Tech Company program. Siemens Xcelerator is the backbone of this program, enabling seamless integration of cutting-edge partner technologies into industrial ecosystems.
“With the ONE Tech Company program, Siemens has extended to the whole company what we at Digital Industries Software have basically been doing for years,” Volker Albrecht says. “At the end of the day, it’s about looking at things from the customer perspective, bringing things together and getting out of departmental silos.”
The ONE Tech Company program draws on the strong, outcome-focused ecosystems created with our partners and on internal capabilities to drive the next stage of industrial transformation. It moves quality out of its traditional isolated domain and helps customers to extend the quality domain into all product lifecycle processes.
Embedding quality excellence across the product lifecycle
In 2025, Siemens marked its 40th year of making quality and compliance management a focal point of its mission in digital industries software. When the company acquired a best-in-class quality management system (QMS), Siemens R&D efforts applied our know-how to extend the reach of QMS software beyond its traditional focus on manufacturing repeatability and customer complaints. A siloed approach was soon replaced with a holistic solution modeled on the Deming “Plan, Do, Check, Act” cycle. This approach supports the entire product lifecycle to address manufacturing challenges and ensure that users can meet their business targets.
The holistic approach also supports the entire product value chain with interconnected continuous improvement processes. Extending the reach of quality and compliance initiatives even further, Siemens now supports closed loop quality (CLQ). This approach brings insights gained from each product cycle around to the next production run of that product and also back to the design team to leverage lessons learned as they develop the next product. CLQ was first defined when Volker Albrecht was VP of the Opcenter MOM strategy and portfolio management.
Broadening the quality mission to cross-domain collaborative work
Siemens Digital Industries Software introduced Teamcenter® Quality in 2021, expanding our QMS capabilities into a complete lifecycle management ecosystem built on the Siemens Xcelerator business platform. By leveraging the wide portfolio of Teamcenter with combined QMS and product lifecycle management (PLM) capabilities, manufacturers can achieve improved efficiency throughout the product lifecycle.
Through seamless coordination between QMS processes and product development, the Siemens portfolio supports quality professionals to effectively and efficiently incorporate requirements into the product lifecycle. This holistic software ecosystem helps to streamline decision-making processes, reduce errors and enhance overall productivity. Additionally, manufacturers can leverage the Siemens portfolio to extend excellence beyond the company’s manufacturing domain through collaborative partnerships with suppliers. Siemens technology enables our customers to forge deeper, more meaningful relationships with their supplier network, creating a shared commitment to quality that enhances their entire value chain.
Expanding the quality footprint to engineering domains
Siemens has also combined product design and production process measurement technologies to close the loop between the as-built and the as-designed product. Variation Analysis (VA), available for Teamcenter and NX software, is used to design and validate geometric dimensioning and tolerancing (GD&T) with 3D tolerance analysis and variation simulation for parts and assemblies. Plus, Siemens Dimensional Reporting and Analytics (DPV) is an integrated set of tools that provides real time capture and analysis of production process data, enabling quick problem resolution, reduction of production down-time, and the overall improvement of in-depth analysis on the build process.
Elevating your core processes using cloud-based QMS solutions
To help each customer gain the advantages of cloud technology whatever their particular needs are, Siemens offers products that are modular, secure and deployment-agnostic, such as Teamcenter X Quality and Opcenter X Quality.
“Our portfolio is flexible enough to add value for any customer,” Volker Albrecht says. It is designed to work optimally for various cloud deployments, including the public cloud, private cloud, private data center or edge technology. With cloud-based QMS solutions, customers can start with the QMS modules that address their needs and then expand as their digital expertise matures.
With Opcenter X, customers can expand not only in the quality domain but also towards manufacturing execution, production scheduling, laboratory management and logistics all within the Xcelerator ecosystem. This empowers them to optimize operations, strategically allocating, scaling and customizing resources.
Opcenter X Quality and cutting-edge technologies
As each Siemens customer progresses in its digital transformation, Volker Albrecht and his teams envision that Siemens supports each step of the journey – from paper to fully integrated, embedded closed loop quality and beyond. Companies ready for the most recent advancements have a strong partner in Siemens as we incorporate cloud deployment and industrial AI into our portfolio.
Volker Albrecht points out that Siemens Digital Logistics built a cloud-native platform over 20 years ago. “At that point in time, some of today’s well known cloud providers didn’t even exist!” he observes. “With this experience, we have gone through some hurdles and done all the necessary things to take care of cloud technology and security.”
Siemens recently launched Opcenter X Quality, a cloud-based QMS that covers all quality-relevant processes on the shop floor, from product and process controls to defining actions for deviations. Using Opcenter X Quality enables manufacturers to streamline inspection planning, data acquisition, statistical process control and nonconformance management.
AI-empowered quality and compliance capabilities
Siemens has also been working hand in hand with customers as they enhance their capabilities through industrial AI, which Volker Albrecht points out is different from general AI. “They need to do AI with a purpose,” he says, noting that each customer must sync industrial grade AI with their specific operations. “Because the processes are different, you need to think about your domain. You also need to make AI applications reliable and secure – robust in the best sense. Because at the end of the day, you need to trust that application and we can’t allow misapprehensions in our manufacturing domains.”
“At Siemens, we’re actively integrating AI capabilities across our quality management processes. From enhancing problem-solving analysis to supporting audit management. Applying industrial AI is about solving real business challenges of quality professionals, ” reveals Volker Albrecht, discussing upcoming advancement in quality management.
“With Teamcenter Quality’s Generative AI solution, we’re going to streamline how audits are conducted. When auditors identify deviations, our GenAI application – we call it the Quality Buddy – instantly provides you with the top five similar findings from previous audits. It’s like having a knowledgeable colleague right there with you, offering relevant examples and suggestions. The Generative AI application’s true value lies in its continuous learning capability. “Each audit will enrich a company’s knowledge base, making future suggestions even more accurate. This AI technology can provide tangible benefits through more efficient audits, better documentation, and significant time savings for auditors.”
“At Siemens, we’re focused on making quality management processes smarter, faster, and more reliable. This is what digitalization should look like – easy to use for quality personnel solving practical everyday challenges.”
Industry excitement about the Siemens quality approach
Volker Albrecht experienced firsthand the growing enthusiasm among manufacturers for closed loop quality, industrial AI and cloud technologies at this year’s Hannover Messe. The Siemens booth this year highlighted the pharmaceuticals market where QMS also plays an essential role. Another 15 to 20 stations at the booth emphasized integrated lifecycle management and smart manufacturing, with the QMS domain playing an integral role across different industrial applications.
“This underlines our belief that with our operational software, we really connect things across the board. This is the mainstage, not somewhere at the edge,” Albrecht notes. The Siemens booth at the fair enjoyed over 100,000 visitors. Many “acknowledged that Siemens is the right partner to talk to because of the breadth of our portfolio, and that we’re hitting the right trends at the right time,” he reports. “That was great to see.”
Broadening the quality mission to shape the future together
Reflecting on his overall career, Volker Albrecht attests that his personal evolution mirrors the company’s broadening QMS mission. “What I found in the strategy and portfolio as VP, I’m now responsible to execute,” he says. “My role has changed from functional responsibility to an overall customer-facing responsibility for end-to-end quality.” Likewise, Siemens seeks to help customers transform their siloed functionalities to a holistic, end-to-end mindset.
Albrecht’s vision for these customers? “To enable them to do the right things, have the right planning for it, and then when the product goes out, really having the feedback throughout the lifecycle of the product. It sounds very complex, and it’s not an easy task. But if you think it through this way, you have more and bigger levers to optimize quality. That’s something that drives me in my thinking.”
A cultural, organizational shift is essential to the digital transformation, Volker Albrecht believes. “Transformation means a lot of change, and change means uncertainty. Company leadership is needed to help each department understand why they should be thinking about quality,” he emphasizes.
“Don’t forget the people,” he concludes. “They need to understand that there’s not too much uncertainty as you take them along to new thinking about quality transformation.”
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