“Follow The Twin” Chal­lenge at HM 2024: Live Inter­op­er­ability with AAS

• Effi­cient Data Exchange: One of the primary purposes of ensuring inter­op­er­ability between the Digital Twin and AAS is to facil­i­tate a stan­dard­ized and effi­cient exchange of data across different stages of produc­tion. This stan­dard-confor­mant data exchange is partic­u­larly bene­fi­cial in engi­neering sectors, where various stake­holders like manu­fac­turers, suppliers, and customers are involved. Through the defined AAS stan­dard, digital twins can be exchanged effi­ciently among different part­ners, thereby enhancing the process of engi­neering.
• Industry 4.0 Align­ment: The inter­op­er­ability aligns well with the objec­tives of Industry 4.0, which advo­cates for enhanced connec­tivity, stan­dard­iza­tion, and data sharing among indus­trial assets. This inter­op­er­ability is described as a pillar of the mission state­ment for Industry 4.0. By estab­lishing a stan­dard­ized digital repre­sen­ta­tion (Digital Twin) via AAS, Industry 4.0’s goals of creating an inter­op­er­able, sustain­able, and sover­eign indus­trial ecosystem are advanced.
• Manu­fac­turer Inter­op­er­ability: The AAS is instru­mental in achieving manu­fac­turer inter­op­er­ability, meaning it enables the exchange of data between assets from different manu­fac­turers. This is a signif­i­cant advan­tage for manu­fac­turers, suppliers, customers, and facto­ries, as it simpli­fies coop­er­a­tion and promotes a stan­dard­ized repre­sen­ta­tion of data. The inter­op­er­ability thus facil­i­tates better coor­di­na­tion among different stake­holders involved in the produc­tion ecosystem .
• Support for Autonomous Systems and AI: The Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell not only supports the exchange of data but also lays a digital and inter­op­er­able foun­da­tion for autonomous systems and Arti­fi­cial Intel­li­gence (AI). It does this by struc­turing data in a way that can be stan­dard­ized, found, modeled, retrieved, and forwarded, covering the entire life­cycle of prod­ucts, devices, machines, and facil­i­ties. This struc­tured data handling is essen­tial for real­izing complex solu­tions and contin­uous value chains, which are core to the func­tioning of autonomous systems and AI in an indus­trial setup
• Imple­men­ta­tion Chal­lenges: The scope of imple­men­ta­tion possi­bil­i­ties, use cases, and complexity in the produc­tion envi­ron­ment can be chal­lenging, espe­cially for small and medium-sized enter­prises (SMEs), but also for larger compa­nies. The inter­op­er­ability between the Digital Twin and AAS helps in navi­gating these chal­lenges by providing a struc­tured approach towards imple­menting digital twins in a norm-compliant digital produc­tion 

Inter­op­er­ability between the Digital Twin and Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell is crucial for stan­dard­izing data exchange, aligning with Industry 4.0 objec­tives, facil­i­tating manu­fac­turer inter­op­er­ability, supporting autonomous systems and AI, and navi­gating imple­men­ta­tion chal­lenges in the produc­tion envi­ron­ment.

An AAS-Plat­form allow compa­nies and consumers to partic­i­pate in a data ecosystem in an easy and versa­tile manner. All infor­ma­tion, such as needed for the digital product pass­port, can be provided along the life­cycle of a product. 

The Digital Twin based on the AAS and provided by a stan­dard conform Repos­i­tory (such as an AAS-Plat­form) makes it a single source of truth for  product infor­ma­tion in cross-company busi­ness scenarios. 

Industry supply chains are frag­mented. Prod­ucts evolve and move cross company. At some point almost all Use Cases require to move an AAS across various back­ends.

Basic Capa­bil­i­ties (for both): 

Provi­sioning of instance and type asset admin­is­tra­tion shells.

Inter­faces for machine read and write access to the AAS, compliant with IDTA API spec­i­fi­ca­tion for an AAS complying with V3.0 spec­i­fi­ca­tion.

Submodels*: Digital Name­plate / Handover Docu­men­ta­tion / Tech­nical Data / Contact Infor­ma­tion / Hier­ar­chical Struc­ture for BoM / Product Carbon Foot­print

Conple­ment:

twin­sphere – The industry grade AAS-Plat­form

• Highly scal­able provi­sion of 8‑digit numbers of AAS
• Multi-tenancy with secure isola­tion of client data
• Noti­fi­ca­tion on infor­ma­tion updates with versa­tile eventing
• Push mech­a­nism to auto­mat­i­cally publish new digital twins
• Auto­matic creation and publishing of VDI-2770 Docu­ment Containers with PDF‑A
• SDK for C# and Java to inte­grate AAS creation in your produc­tion processes
• Easy Access to all data in the Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shells with build in AAS-Viewer

XITASO: 

Mnestix – AAS made easy! 

• Profes­sional support avail­able
• Pilot matu­rity
• Easy to setup and inte­grate (thanks to container­iza­tion, submodel template builder and data ingest endpoint)
• Easy to use (viewer for all AASs and submodels)
• Allows custom white labeling
• Full data owner­ship with on prem and in the company cloud.
• Powered by Eclipse BaSyx AAS Envi­ron­ment

The industry is and stays frag­mented. There is no single central system, and this is not an issue. In the contrary, the concept of data spaces like Catena‑X or Factory‑X promotes a hetero­ge­neous envi­ron­ment allowing each player to utilize own strengths and indi­vid­u­ality thus still main­taining the capa­bility to orches­trate and execute cross company processes. All this is based on stan­dards like the AAS. 

The Follow-the-Twin Chal­lenge shows exactly this. It provides infor­ma­tion about different assets in a unified and consis­tent manner, although not being by a central system.

The prod­ucts of partic­i­pating compa­nies will be randomly hosted in one of two back­ends. Both solu­tions are based on completely different archi­tec­tures and approaches – twin­sphere is conple­ments multi-tenant SaaS Cloud Service for AAS, while the other is a dedi­cated “Eclipse BaSyx – AAS Envi­ron­ment” instance provided within Mnestix by XITASO. But despite this, the infor­ma­tion flow is seam­less to the user. 

In order to be allowed for a daily jackpot the user needs to gather a minimum number of prod­ucts from each backend. No worries it’s not going to be too diffi­cult, and the app will guide you.

In order to allow every partic­i­pating members to show­case own digital twins addi­tion­ally in their repos­i­tory or product portal, we’ll provide a dedi­cated submodel to allow for redi­rec­tion and calling of external systems. –> Just have a look on the right side of the flow­chart below to see how it is embedded.