Design and Implementation of a Model Factory for Industrial Communication in Industry 4.0 and 5.0

One of the prerequisites and key features of In-dustry 4.0 (14.0) and upcoming Industry 15.0 is the seamless communication from the shop floor to business IT [1]. According to the RAMI [2] architectures, components should integrate in the manufacturing and business IT-network. Here, a major challenge is interoperability [1] [2], which might lead to prohib-itive effort for implementation. This paper addresses the design and the implementation of our model factory “AUT SMART” [3], which can be used to assess 14.0 communication. Instead of studying components and their specification, we use a system approach with real-world applications. A manufacturing use case is mimicked and the behavior of components in the system and the system itself is studied. Qualitative results are given for the implementation of an actual production line and its digital twin. It includes 3D-visualisation with real-time data, simulation, operation, and asset management. First conclusions are drawn for implementing quantitative measures to judge the ma-turity and effort of specific implementations and tool sets.