Digital Transformation in Practice : Learning from IIC Deployments
The deployments described in the following sections each have learnings that can be applied to digital transformation initiatives . Each description includes an overview , a comparison against digital transformation business goals , key factors and underpinning technology .
• Achieve a flexible adaptation of production capabilities and sharing of resources and assets in a web of Smart Factories to improve order fulfillment and
• Provide the technical basis for new business models with flexible assignment and sharing of production resources .
It was initiated by Fraunhofer IOSB and the Korea Electronics Technology Institute ( KETI ). Subsequently Microsoft and SAP have joined the testbed team to leverage commercial business cases and additional technologies . The Negotiation Automation Platform led by NEC applies Smart Factory Web for the registration and search for matching manufacturing resources .
Smart Factory Web forms a strategic ecosystem of projects in which concepts and technologies of IIC , Plattform Industrie 4.0 and the International Data Spaces Association are tested , evaluated and developed further . More detailed information can be found in Usländer et al 3 and Watson et al 4 .
IT / OT integration and convergence : The Smart Factory Web Testbed makes extensive use of the standards OPC UA , AutomationML ( AML ) and the Asset Administration Shell ( AAS ) of Platform Industrie 4.0 . These standards provide the framework for the integration of OT assets ( factories , machines and devices ) with IT . Asset descriptions , capabilities and data variables can then be fully accessed in the IT world as an essential step towards digital transformation of a factory and the networking of its production equipment . New applications can be deployed without the constraints and limitations of the traditional OT world dictated by proprietary software environment and device interfaces . Assets are registered in Smart Factory Web with a description of their capabilities . Selected factory data can be exploited in Smart Factory Web via standard interfaces to support a range of use cases , for example monitoring of overall production status .
3
Usländer , T .; Schöppenthau , F .; Schnebel , B .; Heymann , S .; Stojanovic , L .; Watson , K .; Nam , S .; Morinaga , S . Smart Factory Web — A Blueprint Architecture for Open Marketplaces for Industrial Production . Appl . Sci . 2021 , 11 , 6585 .
https :// doi . org / 10.3390 / app11146585
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