Dr. Gregor Tolksdorf is an engineer and data integration expert at Evonik, as well as a prominent figure within DEXPI (Data Exchange in the Process Industry).
Professional background
• Education: He earned his doctorate while working as a research associate at the Technical University of Berlin from 2013 to 2018. His doctoral thesis was on the “Automatic implementation of CAPE-OPEN interfaces in process development”.
• Since 2018, he works for Evonik, being the data domain manager for the Asset lifecycle (covering process, plant, and maintenance domains)
DEXPI activities
Gregor is highly active within the DEXPI initiative, which aims to develop a standard for data exchange across the process industry. His work primarily involves leading the development of the DEXPI specification.
Key activities include:
• Head of Specification Teams: Tolksdorf leads the DEXPI specification teams. The team are responsible for developing and refining the different parts and the interplay of the open, vendor-neutral data models that enable standardized exchange of engineering information.
• DEXPI 2.0: He played a key role in the recent publication of the DEXPI 2.0 specification in October 2025. This version unifies the models for process flow diagrams (PFDs) and piping and instrumentation diagrams (P&IDs) into a single standard.
• DEXPI Process: He was one of the key actors in the development and release of the DEXPI Process Specification, which focuses on standardizing data for earlier-stage process design, including block flow diagrams (BFDs) and PFDs.
Abstract
Update on DEXPI Standards : With the release of the DEXPI 2.0 Specification on 10th of October 2025, a new, freely available standardized format for serializing process flow diagrams as well as a standardized taxonomy for process steps / unit operations has been published. In this presentation, the expected impact on process engineering research and development as well as the interplay with process simulation is highlighted.