Introduction
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWE) has launched the Data Space Accelerator, a study designed to help particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) join the Catena-X data space in 2026. Depending on the selected use case, participating companies will receive financial support of €15,000 or €30,000 net. The International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), the Catena-X Automotive Network e.V., and Cofinity-X GmbH are responsible for implementing the study.
Learn how to get started with the Company Certificate Management Use Case as part of the Data Space Accelerator.
What you need to do?
Get informed: In today’s automotive supply chains, companies must repeatedly upload company certificates (e.g. ISO, IATF, AEO) to multiple partner portals. This leads to, redundant work, data inconsistencies and high administrative effort. Company certificates are essential for secure business transactions but managing them across multiple partners can be complex. To simplify this process, a standardized data model has been developed for Catena-X participants, by sharing the certificates through an Eclipse Dataspace Connector (EDC).
Apply for the Data Space Accelerator: Please fill the interest form here. You will receive an email notification once your application has been accepted. Please save your Program ID for future reference.
Register with Cofinity-X: Once accepted, please continue by registering your company to Cofinity-X here to receive access to the dataspace and have a wallet with the corresponding credentials.
Get connected: Choose a suitable Company Certificate Management solution from the Marketplace to receive and manage your Data Readiness Certificate. Explore our Marketplace to find a suitable solution.
Share a company certificate: To become Dataspace Ready, the DSA participant must share at least one supported Catena-X certificate with Cofinity-X using the PUSH method and the relevant BPNA/S. Supported certificates include ISO, IATF, AEO, CTPAT, and VDA standards. Follow the detailed steps below.
Receive your certification: Finally, Cofinity-X will consume and check for data correctness, thereby completing the validation process for Data Space readiness.Upon successful validation, the participant is officially recognized as Dataspace Ready and receives the Data Readiness Certificate in the DSA portal.
Below are the detailed steps outlining what you need to do to complete this CCM use case.
Step 1. Prepare your certificate
Make sure your certificate is one of the accepted types:
IATF 16949, ISO 14001, ISO 9001, ISO 45001, OHSAS 18001, ISO/IEC 27001, ISO 50001, ISO/IEC 17025, ISO 20000, ISO 22301, AEO, CTPAT, VDA 6.4
Step 2. Prepare required location identifiers (BPNS or a BPNA)
Each certificate must be linked to a specific location, either a Site or an Address.
Get BPNS - for a site
You can get a BPNS for your site in Cofinity-X Portal.
For your main legal entity:
Go to “Your Company” → “Your sites and addresses”
Add or manage your sites there.
For Managed Partners (sub-legal entities):
First ensure the Managed Partner is onboarded
Go to "Managed companies" and if not created already, create the sublegal entity following the guide: https://userguide.cofinity-x.com/en/articles/637970-set-up-and-onboard-a-managed-legal-entity
Add your sites/addresses to their corresponding sublegal entity (Note that additional address belonging to a site can only be added after the site is successfully processed )
Or Get BPNA for an Address
Get a BPNA for each individual location the certificate applies to.
Retrieve BPNA for every site where the certificate will be used
Follow the provided step-by-step BPNA retrieval guide in the Cofinity-X portal
Note: This process may take up to 2 working days
Step 3. Submit certificate via PUSH method
Send the certificate according to Catena-X standard using the following details:
Environment: Production
Method: PUSH
BPNL (Recipient): BPNLCOFINITYEZFA
Step 4. Confirm and verify submission
After sending:
Inform Cofinity-X team that the certificate was provided successfully, by sending an email to [email protected], mentioning the company name and BPNL.
Confirm the certificate was successfully accepted in the system.