- New use cases and projects for Industry 4.0 and IIoT at the stands of the OI4 Alliance and its new and existing members
- Digital Twin Enablement, Asset Administration Shell (AAS), multi-vendor approach and interoperability demonstrated using three use cases
- “Follow the Twin Challenge” for the first time as a use case variant
Reinach, Switzerland, 15.10.2024 — This year, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance will be represented for the fifth time at SPS from November 12 to 14 in Nuremberg (Hall 5, Stand 160). With a total of 106 Alliance members and thanks to a steadily increasing level of activity within the growing number of projects and partnerships, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance 2024 is presenting significantly more use cases and projects relevant to Industry 4.0 and IIoT than in previous years. As a result, new forms of partnership — such as that of a “project partner” — have also been established. In addition to a new edition of the “Follow The Digital Twin Challenge”, this year’s Alliance presence will focus on the presentation of a vertical farming demonstrator that uses three use cases to demonstrate the focus on a multi-vendor approach and interoperability within such synergetic projects. These case studies deal in detail with the topics of “Engineering to Operations”, “Industrial Control as a Service” and “Automated as Built”.
Initially developed by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim and Endress+Hauser, other OI4 members such as Beckhoff, COPA-DATA, FLECS and ZETA are now taking part in this project. This shows the connection between IT and OT and the new OI4 Architectural Guardrails in use as part of an illustrative, innovative demo. The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance acts simultaneously as an enabler, network and platform, supports the project participants with coordination, project and knowledge management and offers a protected environment based on its IP policy.
“The Industrial Control as a Service (IcaaS) use case within the Vertical Farming Demonstrator shows a scalability of OT technology that was previously only known from IT,” explains Samuel Greising, Managing Director at FLECS. “This is made possible by eliminating physical PLC/edge hardware and dispensing with classic fieldbuses. The ‘as-a-Service’ approach simplifies modern engineering considerably.”
Michael Riester, Head of Research & Development at Endress+Hauser, adds: “With the Vertical Farming Demonstrator, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance shows how manufacturers can sustainably optimize planning processes in the process industry and make them more efficient by ensuring interoperability and on the basis of standards such as the asset administration shell as an implementation of the digital twin. This reduces manual effort and significantly optimizes both the time required to plan new systems and the time-to-market. The central aspect here is ensuring interoperability for data, interfaces and semantics across the entire life cycle.”
Of course, the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance will once again be focusing on the topic of “digital twins” at this year’s trade fair. As part of a new edition of the “Follow The Digital Twin” competition, which enjoyed great popularity at last year’s SPS and Hannover Messe, visitors to the stand will once again be able to visually experience the interoperability of standardized digital twins. By refocusing on use cases, OI4 also makes this topic more understandable and comprehensible for end customers. The route leads across the trade fair to the stands of numerous alliance members, where this time they have to find and scan digital twins with a stronger focus on use cases and open a corresponding web app. Numerous digital twins — all of which are structured by the companies in a format in accordance with the AAS — can be found and scanned. Examples of use cases include “Up-to-Date Information”, “Transfer of Ownership” and “Predictive Maintenance”.
The Open Industry 4.0 Alliance will also be presenting other exciting and informative projects and use cases at SPS 2024 in Nuremberg. For example, the results of several hackathons — such as the “Cross Enterprise Asset Administration Shell (AAS) Transfer” project, which was created during these events — will be on display. There will also be in-depth insights — including into the Remote Device Management and Vulnerability Management activities — and news about the Digital Product Passport (DPP) will be presented.
“The practical implementation of interoperability as part of a multi-vendor approach and an absolute focus on the needs of our members and their customers and partners are more important to us today than ever before,” emphasizes Ekrem Yigitdöl, Managing Director of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. “We are working collaboratively and symbiotically on an ever broader range of topics that will be relevant to Industry 4.0 and IIoT today and in the future, with more initiatives from members and partners being added continuously. This year’s SPS once again gives us the great opportunity to present some of these developments, projects and advances to an interested audience. As part of this, we will also be releasing four different publications on the topics of vulnerability management, AI and digital twin in time for the start of the trade fair.”
Further information on the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance’s appearance at SPS 2024 in Nuremberg: https://openindustry4.com/events/oi4-alliance-at-the-sps-fair-2024/