RAMI 4.0

What does RAMI 4.0 stand for?

RAMI 4.0 stands for Refer­ence Archi­tec­ture Model Indus­trie 4.0. It was devel­oped by the German Plat­tform Indus­trie 4.0, supported by the asso­ci­a­tions Bitkom, VDMA and ZVEI, as a refer­ence model for the design and inte­gra­tion of Industry 4.0 solu­tions. Its purpose is to struc­ture the complexity of digital trans­for­ma­tion in manu­fac­turing, support the adop­tion of inter­op­er­ability stan­dards, and iden­tify which existing stan­dards apply where, and where gaps remain. Mapping a tech­nology to its place in the model gives everyone the same context.

The three dimen­sions of RAMI 4.0

1. Archi­tec­ture layers (vertical axis)

Six layers describe an asset from its phys­ical form to its busi­ness purpose:

• Busi­ness: busi­ness models, processes and legal condi­tions
• Func­tional: the func­tions of an asset, including appli­ca­tions and services
• Infor­ma­tion: the data and its models
• Commu­ni­ca­tion: stan­dard­ized commu­ni­ca­tion between assets, for example with the OPC UA protocol, including real-time data exchange
• Inte­gra­tion: the tran­si­tion from the phys­ical to the digital world, such as sensors, IoT devices and inter­faces
• Asset: the phys­ical or logical thing itself, for example a machine on a produc­tion line or a soft­ware compo­nent

2. Life cycle and value stream (left hori­zontal axis)

Based on IEC 62890, this axis distin­guishes between type and instance. A type is a product design, from devel­op­ment to main­te­nance of the design. An instance is a specific product, from produc­tion to use and service. This distinc­tion is what lets data flow from engi­neering into each deliv­ered unit.

3. Hier­archy levels (right hori­zontal axis)

Based on the automa­tion hier­archy of IEC 62264 and IEC 61512, the axis runs from product, field device, control device and station to work centers and enter­prise. RAMI 4.0 adds the product at the bottom and the connected world at the top, because Industry 4.0 links prod­ucts and compa­nies beyond the bound­aries of one factory.

The Industry 4.0 compo­nent

RAMI 4.0 intro­duced the idea that every asset in Industry 4.0 needs a digital repre­sen­ta­tion. An asset together with its asset admin­is­tra­tion shell forms an Industry 4.0 compo­nent. This concept led directly to today’s AAS, which is main­tained by the IDTA and stan­dard­ized as IEC 63278. In this sense, RAMI 4.0 is the archi­tec­tural root of the stan­dard­ized digital twin.

How does RAMI 4.0 compare with ISA-95?

ISA-95, published inter­na­tion­ally as IEC 62264, describes the inte­gra­tion of enter­prise and control systems in a hier­archy, from sensors and control to MES and ERP. RAMI 4.0 builds on this hier­archy, extends it with the product and the connected world, and adds two further dimen­sions: archi­tec­ture layers and the life cycle. ISA-95 remains widely used for designing MES inte­gra­tion, while RAMI 4.0 frames the bigger picture of connected, life­cycle-wide Industry 4.0 archi­tec­ture.

What are the bene­fits of RAMI 4.0?

• a common language between IT, OT and busi­ness
• a struc­ture to map existing stan­dards and iden­tify gaps
• a frame­work to design and compare Industry 4.0 archi­tec­tures
• the concep­tual basis for the AAS and inter­op­er­able digital twins
• a scal­able way to describe a capa­bility of a system, from a single device to cloud computing services

RAMI 4.0 is a refer­ence model, not a blue­print you can install. Imple­men­ta­tion alliances such as the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance trans­late such models into concrete archi­tec­tures: OI4 works with its own archi­tec­tural guardrails that define how edge, cloud, digital twin and secu­rity layers connect, based on open stan­dards. See the OI4 work­groups for the layers they cover.

Frequently asked ques­tions