Digital Twins of Business Processes as Enablers for IT / OT Integration

The vision of Industry 4.0 introduces new requirements to Operational Technology (OT) systems. Solutions for these requirements already exist in the realm of Information Technology (IT), however, due to the different characteristics of IT and OT, these solutions often cannot be directly used in the realm of OT. We therefore propose an Industrial Business Process Twin (IBPT), allowing to apply methods of one world to another not directly but, instead, to a representation, that is in bidirectional exchange with the other world. The proposed IBPT entity acts as an intermediary, decoupling the realms of IT and OT, thus allowing for an integration of IT and OT components of different manufacturers and platforms. Using this approach, we demonstrate the four essential Industry 4.0 design principles information transparency, technical assistance, interconnection and decentralized decisions based on the gamified Industry 4.0 scenario of playing the game of Nine Men’s Morris. This scenario serves well for agent based Artificial Intelligence (AI)-research and education. We develop an Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) information and communication model and then evaluate the IBPT component with respect to the different views of the Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI4.0).