Results meeting

Results conference on 15.10.2024: How Asset Administration Shell is digitizing the value chain of the wire harness

Dräxlmaier, Kromberg & Schubert, Coroplast, Festo, Komax, Kostal, Wezag and ARENA2036 presented the results of the practical application of the Asset Administration Shell in a real value chain - from OEMs to Tier 3 suppliers. These are the results of three years of development work in the "Asset Administration Shell for the Wire Harness" project. The participants at the results conference were impressed.

The event focused on exclusive insights into the digitalization of the value chain, particularly in the areas of development, production and assembly of wire harnesses. The Asset Administration Shell, which plays a central role in this, is proving to be a real added value for the industry by making processes more efficient and interoperable.

Specific examples were used to show how the Asset Administration Shell can be successfully applied in practice. Key issues such as cross-company collaboration, distributed data storage and the use of a "single point of truth" for data avoidance were discussed in detail. The solution approaches were clearly presented using demonstrators.

400-page results report: The project partners hand over the documentation of the project work to the project sponsor.

Fabian Hammel (VDI-TZ) (right) accepts the VWS4LS results report on behalf of the BMWK as funding body and the VDI Technology Center as project sponsor.  

Why the Asset Administration Shell is so important: The VWS4LS project is a step towards the Industry 4.0 2030 vision.

The VWS4LS project follows on from the essential preliminary work of the Industry 4.0 platform and the Industry 4.0 mission statement. In his introduction, Georg Schnauffer (ARENA2036) explains why the Asset Administration Shell is a key strategic technology and why essential foundations for scaling the Asset Administration Shell have been developed in the "Wire Harness" use case. (Link to the presentation)

Afterwards, VWS4LS project manager Christian Kosel (ARENA2036) described the course of the project over the past three years (link to presentation), followed by presentations of the main project results:

Result 1 - Functional presentation of the overall demonstrator

After the lunch break, Christian Kosel gave a functional presentation of the overall demonstrator as a key project result. In the demonstrator, after selecting a product, the aggregated Asset Administration Shell is created so that a WEZAG crimping machine and the digital twin of a KOMAX system can then be controlled automatically using the "Bill of Process" sub-model. (Link to the presentation)

Result 2 - Pilot connection of the Asset Administration Shell and Catena-X

Mario Angos (Coroplast) and Lena Beil (Dräxlmaier) then gave a clear presentation on how the LS-VWS can be connected to the B2B data room Catena-X using a BaSyx infrastructure via the EDC. This approach is an example of how the exchange of data for engineering and production of wire harnesses can also be exchanged via a data room (link to presentation)

Result 3 - Description of capabilities for product, process and resources

In this presentation, Matthias Freund (Festo) discussed the modelling of capabilities for products, processes and resources, which become necessary in the course of the digitalization of the Wire Harness, for example, in order to be able to automatically determine production resources. (Link to the presentation)

Result 4 - Development and application of the OPC-UA Companion Specification for Wiring Harness

Pascal Neuperger (Komax) then explained how a production machine can be controlled automatically in the manufacturing process in his subsequent presentation on the new OPC-UA Companion Specification for Wiring Harness created in VWS4LS. This specification allows standardized control of production equipment for the Wire Harness industry(link to presentation)

Result 5 - Automated negotiation processes in production

Gerd Neudecker (Kromberg & Schubert) and Melanie Stolze (ifak Magdeburg) spoke about automated negotiation processes in production and how these were solved in the project with the help of Asset Administration Shell and I40 language.
(link to presentation)

Result 6 - Integration of the "KBL" and "VEC" domain standards

As the "Wire Harness List" (KBL) and "Vehicle Electric Container" (VEC) are established formats for specifying wire harnesses in the automotive industry, the integration of these existing standards is a key prerequisite for the acceptance of solutions based on the Asset Administration Shell principle. Dr. Matthias Freund (Festo) explained the concepts developed in the VWS4LS project in this regard using a three-core cable as an example, which also served as a reference example in other areas of the project. (Link to the presentation)

Result 7 - Architectural results relating to the Asset Administration Shell (versioning, traceability, modularization, synchronization, change management and linking)
In the early phase of the project, it became apparent that central basic architectural issues needed to be clarified across the board for processing in the respective sub-projects. A separate "architecture team" was formed for this purpose, which identified gaps in the course of the work and developed its own definitions as a solution. Pascal Neuperger (Komax), Melanie Stolze (ifak Magdeburg), Rene Fischer (Fraunhofer IESE), Jannis Jung (Fraunhofer IESE) and Gerd Neudecker (Kromberg und Schubert) coordinated the work in the respective sub-teams and presented the results at the results conference.
(link to presentation)

Result 8 - Reference architecture for the virtual commissioning of composite components based on the VWS

The virtual commissioning method allows a simulation of the system behavior based on digital twins before the real hardware is available. In their presentation, Pascal Neuperger (Komax) and Toni Kristicevic (Festo) impressively explained the advantages of this method using an exemplary test module from Komax with drive elements from Festo. (Link to the presentation)

Result 9 - Development of IDTA submodels (data retention policies and bill-of-process)

A machine-readable description of production equipment is a fundamental prerequisite for the automated control and optimization of production processes. Dr. Alexander Salinas (Dräxlmaier) impressively explained the relevance of these models, even beyond the Wire Harness industry. The "Bill of Process" sub-model was therefore developed and submitted to the IDTA to make it usable in the long term. The issue of traceability of manufactured products is also extremely relevant in the Wire Harness industry. Legal, regulatory and contractual requirements demand structured data storage, including the identification of obsolete data records. Pascal Neuperger (Komax Test Systems) explained how the IDTA sub-model "Data Retention Policies" was developed from this. (Link to the presentation)

 

Summary and outlook

All key project objectives were achieved and in some cases even exceeded. See also the KoPa4Mobility publication. In the upcoming project extension, decisive topics can still be driven to application maturity. The project results, including the software artifacts created, have been made available in various GitHub repositories. (Link to the presentation)

Group photo of the highly satisfied event participants.