Towards a One-Stop-Shop Solution for the Application of Data-Driven Value-Adding Services in Production

The holistic application of data-driven value-adding services (DDSs) to shop-floor assets (SFAs; e.g. equipment, machines, components) is a major obstacle, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs): Due to the high complexity and required expertise in various disciplines. It is necessary to i) select suitable DDSs for a relevant component in production, ii) provide data for their training, iii) deploy the DDSs in the given IT/OT infrastructure, and iv) setup data-streams between SFAs, DDSs, and dashboards. Currently, many companies are implementing flagship projects that go through the necessary steps for individual components, but these isolated solutions are not scalable due to the need for manual intervention. This paper describes how to completely automatize the four steps and their consolidation in a scalable Industry 4.0 one-stop-shop solution. To achieve this goal, each asset is equipped with an Asset Administration Shell (AAS) that specifies, in particular, the represented asset's capabilities, the data required to apply such a capability and the data generated by a capability. Based on the AASs of SFAs, DDSs, and computing resources (CRs), a matching service suggests automatically which DDSs would add value to which SFAs and, for each SFA-DDS match, in which CR to deploy the DDS. A trade fair demonstration provides strong support for the statements made: The one-stop-shop solution including the automatic matching greatly simplifies the application of data-driven services and, in some cases, even makes it possible at all.