Toward Industry 4.0 Components Insights Into and Implementation of Asset Administration Shells

Abstract

Diverse customer demands are increasing the need for improved flexibility, adaptability, and transparency of production processes; traditional manufacturing systems must change. To meet these requirements, cyberphysical system (CPS) technologies are being increasingly applied in industrial manufacturing, equipping production facilities with autonomous adaptation capabilities. This is achieved by incorporating physical objects and their virtual representations and enabling bidirectional information exchange between them. The Industry 4.0 (I4.0) Component proposed by Germany's 14.0 initiative is an emerging CPS category. The concept of an administration shell or an asset administration shell (AAS) is a virtual digital representation of the 14.0 asset that plays a pivotal role in establishing communication among 14.0 Components. To date, the granularity of information modeled in an AAS remains undefined. Therefore, this article focuses on not only the general form but also the fine-grained details of the AAS. The goal is to present a high-level introduction to this topic, substantiated by an implementation example in a manufacturing system; to provide different 14.0 stakeholders (e.g., manufacturers, integrators, and operators) with best-practice guidelines for carrying out their own AASrelated activities; and to strengthen the interaction between academic research and industrial practice to accelerate the digitalization of industrial production through deploying AASs. We live in the time of the fourth industrial revolution, which is associated with rapid changes in production operations. The CPS approach decentralizes production, rendering production systems autonomous, flexible, and adaptive. The 14.0 Component philosophy links physical assets to their virtual representations, facilitating information interaction. This article provides meaningful insights into an implementation of the AAS within a real manufacturing use case. This implies that an industrial CPS system that contains several 14.0 Components can be developed successfully.