Asset administration shell

The increasing heterogeneity and complexity of industrial plant components from different manufacturers make it difficult to handle technical documentation consistently. In addition, the flexibility required for system changes challenges the long-term usability and legally compliant design of this documentation throughout the entire life cycle of cyber-physical production systems. This article contributes to the discussion on Technical Documentation 4.0 by systematically analyzing existing specifications and approaches and by proposing a concept for a holistic documentation framework.

Establishing “smart” production processes that are focused on sustainability and based on aggregated data requires a great deal of exchange at various levels. The vertical integration of different production components provides companies with an important basis for achieving their sustainability goals. Digital twins can play a decisive role in driving this process forward.

In practice, the integration of heterogeneous IoT components is often a complex and confusing process. The different ways of representing information about individual assets create the desire for a standardized representation. The administration shell (AAS) creates a digital exchange format for this purpose. This potential is to be exploited and put into practice as part of the EIT project "AASHub". The aim of the project is to develop a process for integrating information from the administration shell into the IoT platform "Contact Elements for IoT". (Only in German)

Due to an increased product variety, the need for flexibly configured assembly systems is steadily growing. In contrast to classic assembly lines with predominantly rigid conveyor technology, efficient, individual assembly routes with cycle-independent processing times are implemented in a dynamically interconnected assembly system using intelligent control and AGVs. This article presents the most important factors for the IT-related implementation of a dynamically interconnected assembly system and shows which existing standards from the field of Industry 4.0 can be used for this purpose.