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New Busi­ness Oppor­tu­ni­ties? Proac­tive Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell

The Chal­lenge
We Tackled

Today’s manu­fac­turing processes are often times controlled by mono­lithic MES systems where busi­ness rules and work­flows are hard-coded. This creates long adap­ta­tion cycles, vendor depen­den­cies, and limited flex­i­bility. By shifting rules and behav­iors into the AAS, processes become decen­tral­ized and adap­tive, allowing new assets to inte­grate seam­lessly and enabling faster recon­fig­u­ra­tion without coding.

Who is
Partic­i­pating?

Why this project
matters and for who

The idea of a proac­tive Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell is to move beyond static descrip­tions. An AAS as stan­dard­ized and inter­op­er­able repre­sen­ta­tion of an asset could also carry the rules and behav­iors that govern processes. If this works, the AAS will not only provide data but also act, making produc­tion more adap­tive and resilient.

For manu­fac­turing, this would mean lower inte­gra­tion costs, faster reac­tion to change, and fewer disrup­tions when assets are replaced or extended. Instead of work­flows being locked into central systems, they would travel with the asset itself, ready to plug into its envi­ron­ment.

The real break­through lies in collab­o­ra­tion across compa­nies. If the same proac­tive AAS can be shared along the value chain, suppliers, oper­a­tors, and service providers could exchange infor­ma­tion and trigger actions without manual effort. This would pave the way for new forms of automa­tion, predic­tive services, and digital product pass­ports that work seam­lessly across orga­ni­za­tional bound­aries.

This project is about putting that vision to the test and exploring how far a proac­tive AAS can go in real indus­trial settings.

What we’ve
achieved

Since the kick-off in January 2025, the project team has worked in bi-weekly sessions to turn the idea of proac­tive Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shells into a tangible concept and first imple­men­ta­tion.

Common concept defined
We estab­lished a joint approach for describing the behavior of assets directly in their AAS. Rules are linked to Submod­elEle­ments, eval­u­ated when condi­tions are met, and trigger actions such as publishing events, updating values, or calling APIs. This shifts complex logic out of MES code and into trans­parent, decen­tral­ized Digital Twins.

Rule modeling explored
Different approaches were tested, including BPMN with Camunda, IEC 61499, OPC UA event handling, and the AAS Access Rule Model. Event–Condition–Action patterns were used to show how simple prop­erty changes in the AAS can trigger follow-up processes.

Industry scenarios defined
Together with part­ners such as TRUMPF and Lenze, the team described use cases where proac­tive AAS behavior provides value:

      • Ware­house quality control and auto­mated storage assign­ment

      • Modular produc­tion processes where assets coor­di­nate autonomously

      • Machine behavior scenarios where Digital Twins trigger actions across IT and OT bound­aries

Demon­strator prepa­ra­tion
Concepts for demon­stra­tors were devel­oped to show how inspec­tion results, storage assign­ments, or produc­tion orders can be handled by proac­tive AAS inter­ac­tions, without being hard-coded into appli­ca­tions.

Proto­type imple­men­ta­tion
A first soft­ware compo­nent called Repo_Rules_Processor_Proxy was created. It acts as a proxy to the AAS repos­i­tory, inter­cepting API calls and eval­u­ating rules stored in “Rules” or “Behav­iour” submodels. The initial version uses DMN (Deci­sion Model and Nota­tion) deci­sion tables, eval­u­ated via a rules engine (e.g., Drools). The open-source imple­men­ta­tion is avail­able here:

GitHub Open Source Demon­strator

The main result of the project is a submodel proposal that is currently under review and repre­sents the final outcome of the work. The proposal defines a cross-domain AAS submodel that intro­duces stan­dard­ized, declar­a­tive, and executable rules to make AAS behavior trans­parent and machine-read­able, covering vali­da­tion of prop­erty changes, rule-based trig­gering of events and oper­a­tions, and internal update logic across prop­er­ties and submodels.

Read PDF proposal here

What’s
next?

This roadmap shows how our AAS-based use cases evolve from concrete, oper­a­tional appli­ca­tions such as Transfer of Owner­ship and Product Change Noti­fi­ca­tion towards DPP 4.0 and, ulti­mately, an AAS Data­space for Every­body, enabling inter­op­er­able and scal­able sharing of digital twins across company bound­aries. With the next mile­stone now reached, a new project on this roadmap has started and is already actively ongoing, trans­lating this vision into a concrete, collab­o­ra­tive imple­men­ta­tion.

project
Deliv­er­ables

Demon­strator

Proto­type showing proac­tive AAS behavior in ware­house inspec­tion and storage.

Archi­tec­tural Concept

Eval­u­a­tion of approaches (BPMN, IEC 61499, Access Rule Model) and design of an ideal setup. The results are commu­ni­cated to IDTA.

Rule Modeling Concept

Spec­i­fi­ca­tion of how rules are expressed, stored, and executed in AAS.

Work­flow Docu­men­ta­tion

Docu­men­ta­tion on oper­a­tional work­flows and best prac­tices.

Out of
Scope

  • Creating a new rule language
    The project does not aim to invent yet another scripting or process language. Instead, existing stan­dards such as BPMN, DMN, IEC 61499, and the AAS Access Rule Model are eval­u­ated and reused.

  • Replacing full MES systems
    The proac­tive AAS approach does not intend to rebuild or replace MES plat­forms. It focuses on decen­tral­izing and modeling rules at the asset level, not on creating a new manu­fac­turing execu­tion envi­ron­ment.

  • Vendor-specific solu­tions
    The work avoids propri­etary rule engines or closed archi­tec­tures. The goal is a trans­parent, stan­dards-based concept that can be reused across vendors.

  • Complete life­cycle coverage
    Only partial aspects of proac­tive AAS are being tested in exem­plary industry scenarios (e.g., ware­house quality control). Full coverage of all produc­tion processes is not part of the current scope.

curious To
learn more?

The project explored how a proac­tive Asset Admin­is­tra­tion Shell can move beyond static data to carry rules and behav­iors that make processes adap­tive and event-driven. First proto­types and sandbox setups are testing the idea, and the next step is to bring these concepts into real devices and indus­trial envi­ron­ments.

If your company wants to be part of this journey, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance offers the right commu­nity. As a member, you can contribute your exper­tise, join collab­o­ra­tive exper­i­ments, and shape how proac­tive AAS evolve into prac­tical solu­tions. Together, we can discover how inter­op­er­ability becomes a real advan­tage across facto­ries and company bound­aries.

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