Potentials of the Asset Administration Shell of Industrie 4.0 for Service-Oriented Business Models

Abstract

The ongoing integration of information and network technologies into the production process leads to cyber-physical system (CPS), specifically designed for industrial purposes. CPS provide a bi-directional information flow between products, machines and top-floor systems, thus enabling the instant adaptation of each process to external and internal conditions. Thereby they offer a high potential to obtain flexible manufacturing systems for custom tailored products at the efficiency level of mass production. Furthermore the functionality and adaptability of future production systems can be considerably improved, thus accommodating service-oriented business concepts. These additional services often include remote accessibility of CPS for monitoring, diagnosis and control over existing networks. With those services the machine-availability can be significantly increased. Further services include data analytics, Internet market places and additional options to meet the customer demands.For the realization of a consistent information flow, the interoperability between the different components has to be guaranteed. Therefore one important goal of current CPS-related research is to develop new standards and platforms for the network communication. To overcome this problem, the German high-tech strategy Industrie 4.0 aims at creating binding standards for the interfaces of all components. A major step towards the standardization was made by defining an administrative shell for each component, which is a framework for the middleware between the existing machines and external networks. This contribution offers an insight into the current developments of Industrie 4.0, focusing on the standardization of CPS, communication technologies and business models.