Applying OPC-UA for Factory-Wide Industrial Assistance Systems

Condition monitoring of machines is a building block for efficient production chains. However, monitoring of a single machine does not cover complex faults that occur due to the interactions of different machines in the production chain. To identify these problems, possible causes and the actual defect location within the value chain, is a complex process. Assistance systems solve this by applying artificial intelligence to learn the system behaviour and provide detailed diagnostics and fault predictions covering the complete factory/plant. We aim for an Industry 4.0 compliant system. To achieve that, we use OPC UA to cover the communication between all parts of the assistance system and each assistance system carries an asset administration shell to share information within the network. In this paper, contrary to our previous work, we focus on the communication aspects required to integrate the assistance systems into the corresponding Industry 4.0 environment [1]. Besides that, we discuss options and challenges to extend our approach towards a system with multiple assistance systems in parallel to cover whole factories.