A bi-directional Interface enabling cross-disciplinary Engineering with RAMI 4.0 and AutomationML

The Reference Architecture Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) has been proposed to faciliate the discussion and contribute to the standardization of future industrial systems, especially in the area of basic engineering. In order to provide the resulting system model to the heterogeneous detailed engineering disciplines, AutomationML appears to be one of the technology drivers, giving the possibility to exchange respective engineering artifacts. Concluding, the utilization of this standard after applying the theoretical engineering concepts of RAMI 4.0 would strongly enhance the interoperability between industrial systems aligned to the reference architecture on the one hand and provide a practical implementation of its theoretical concepts on the other hand. Therefore, this work-in-progress Paper introduces the first implementation of a bi-directional interface, which interconnects basic engineering with detailed engineering of such systems. As model-based systems engineering (MBSE) with either RAMI 4.0 or AutomationML is currently under broad investigation, already established approaches are used to verify the application of the developed interface. An initial real-world example is taken for use to validate the research goals or challenges of the resulting engineering tool-chain, which can strongly contribute to engineering practitioners of flexible production systems by maxing out the heterogeneous tool-landscape.