Standardisation activities
Standards are documented guidelines or specifications that provide a common framework for consistency, interoperability, safety and quality across products, services, processes and systems.
Standardisation activities refer to the processes and efforts involved in using standards for various fields and industries – in this case for the results of research in the course of the Flex4Res project.
The objective of the standardisation activities within Flex4Res is to facilitate the project’s participation and contribution to Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) like ISO, EIC, DIN and similar as well as the active presence in clusters and associations such as IDTA, IDSA, CATENA-X, Gaia-X, Manufacturing-X, STAND4EU project, The Spanish Association for Standardization – UNE or FRAUNHOFFER IPA
Timeline
Phase 1: Pre-information
In the first phase, we gathered information about the partners’ involvement in standardisation activities. Several project partners actively participate in various working groups, including IEC TC 65 WG 24, which focuses on the “Asset Administration Shell for Industrial Applications”. Summary of consortium interests can be seen as follows categorised into four areas:
- Modelling and Information and Representation Standards
- IEC 63278 – Asset Administration Shell for industrial applications
- ISO 13584-42 – Methodology for structuring part families
- IEC 61360 series – IEC Common Data Dictionary
- IEC 62832 and IEC TR62794 – Digital Factory
- IDTA submodels
- Cybersecurity and Safety Standards
- IEC 62443 – Security for industrial process measurement and control – Network and system security
- ISO 27001 – Information security, cybersecurity and privacy protection
- Cybersecurity NIS2 and CRA (EU Cyber Resilience Act)
- Communication Standards
- IEC 62541 – OPC-UA
- IEC 61784 – Industrial communication networks
- Environment management
- ISO 14001 and 18001 – Environmental management systems
- Manufacturing Reference Model Standards
- SMRM – Smart Manufacturing Reference Model(s)
- RAMI 4.0 Reference Architectural Model
- IIRA Industrial Internet Reference Architecture
- IIC – Industrial IoT Consortium
- ISA95, Enterprise-Control System Integration
To address market requirements, the following standards are particularly relevant for Flex4Res:
- IEC 63278-1: Asset Administration Shell for industrial applications
- DIN SPEC 27070:2020: Requirements and reference architecture of a security gateway for the exchange of industry data and services
- Gaia-X standards
- IEC 62541-5:2020: OPC Unified Architecture
Phase 2: Attention
In the second phase, we evaluated the work carried out within the project – specifically focusing on Digital Twin and Data Spaces areas as well as the four use cases – with a focus on potential contributions to the standardisation community. This included initial consideration of using nine IDTA Submodels published, eight as in development status, one in on hold status and three more in proposal submitted status. After that, at Micro, Macro, Meso Level, four IDTA submodels adopted by IDTA have been considered and implemented through the use xases:
- IDTA-02006-2-0 Digital Nameplate for Industrial Equipment
- IDTA 02003-1-2 Generic Frame for Technical Data for Industrial Equipment in Manufacturing
- IDTA 02008-1-1 Time Series Data
- IDTA 02004-1-2 Handover Documentation
Significant contribution to standardisation is related to Resilience AAS Submodel in collaboration with IDTA. Moreover, Basys, Contact IoT Elements and DIMOFAC AAS middlewares have been used in the use cases.
Another important collaboration is our involvement in the EuProGigant project ecosystem. Here, we regularly exchange information with the project partners of the four other projects, focusing on data sharing along the supply and value chains in accordance with Gaia-X principles. Before that, in DIGITAL TWIN area we have reviewed not only AAS Standard but also others that you can see as follows:
- For physical entities:
- IEC TS 62832 Industrial-process measurement, control and automation – Digital factory framework – Part 1: General principles
- IEEE 2888 standard is in the process of development to provide common platform for digital twin space or metaverse plus.
- ISO 23247-1:2021 Automation systems and integration — Digital twin framework for manufacturing
- For virtual entities:
- IEC 63278-1 Asset Administration Shell for industrial applications
- IEC 62714 defines the Automation Markup Language (AML), an XML-based standard for the exchange of engineering data in industrial automation systems.
- ISO 10303, also known as STEP (Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data), is a series of international standards for the computer-interpretable representation and exchange of product information throughout a product’s entire lifecycle
- For data:
- IEC 61987-1 also known as Common Data Dictionary (CDD) Industrial-process measurement and control – Data structures and elements in process equipment catalogues – Part 1: Generic structures for measuring equipment
- IEC 61360 Standard data element types with associated classification scheme
- ISO 13584 with the acronym PLIB Industrial automation systems and integration — Parts library — Part 101: Geometrical view exchange protocol by parametric program
- ISO/FDIS 29002 Industrial automation systems and integration — Exchange of characteristic data
- For connection:
- IEC 61158-1 Industrial communication networks – Fieldbus specifications
- IEC 61784-2 is a standard that specifies Real-Time Ethernet (RTE) communication profiles and related network components for industrial communications
- IEC 62657-2:2022 Industrial networks – Coexistence of wireless systems
- IEC 62541 OPC Unified Architecture
- IEEE 2888.3 IEEE Standard for Orchestration of Digital Synchronization Between Cyber and Physical Worlds
- For services:
- IEEE 1671 IEEE Standard for Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML) for Exchanging Automatic Test Equipment and Test Information via XML
- ISO 13372 Condition monitoring and diagnostics of machines
- ISO 17359 general guidelines for establishing a condition monitoring and diagnostics program for machines
- ISO 20242-5:2020 Industrial automation systems and integration — Service interface for testing applications
In the area of data spaces, key efforts have been focused on the review of standards related to governance models, data interchange protocols and semantic layers to ensure interoperability, data quality and compliance with legislation like the EU Data Act considering key associations like the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA) and the Data Spaces Support Centre (DSSC). Thus standards that in Flex4Res have been considered are:
- Governance Frameworks
- EU Data Act
- ISO/IEC 38500 for IT Governance
- ISO/IEC 38505-1 for Data governance
- ISO/IEC TS 38505-3 for Data management
- ISO 8000 for Data Quality
- IDSA Rule Book
- Data Space Support Centre Blueprint 1.5
- Semantic Interoperability
- ISO/IEC 19941-1 Cloud computing — Part 1: Interoperability and portability
- European Interoperability Framework (EIF)
- CEN/CENELEC JTC 25 for standards necessary for data management, dataspaces, cloud, and edge
- ISO 15836-1:2017 – The Dublin Core metadata element set
- Trusted Data Transactions
- Trusted Data Transaction Framework
- ISO/IEC TR 23186:2018 Cloud computing – Framework of trust for processing of multi-sourced data
- ISO/IEC 20547-4:2020 Big data reference architecture — Part 4: Security and privacy
- Technical Specifications
- DataSpace Protocol as ISO/IEC AWI 20151: Cloud computing and distributed platforms, Dataspace concepts and characteristics
- DIN SPEC 27070:2020-03 Requirements and reference architecture of a security gateway for the exchange of industry data and services
- ISO/IEC 17788 and ISO/IEC 17789 for framework and reference architecture for cloud computing
- ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 32 for standards related to Data management and Interchange
- IEC/SyC SM/WG 8 – Data Spaces for Smart Manufacturing with the purpose of addressing the standardization of data spaces to enable greater integration and advancement of Smart Manufacturing activities
- Others:
- ISO/IEC 10032:2003 Reference Model of Data Management
- ISO/IEC AWI 30152 Guidance on the integration of IoT and digital twins in data spaces
- ISO/IEC 5I81 Data provenance
- ISO/IEC 23751:2022 Cloud computing – Data sharing agreement (DSA) framework
Phase 3: Providing
In the third phase, Flex4Res focused on the standards IEC 63278-1 Asset Administration Shell for industrial applications and ISO/IEC AWI 20151: Cloud computing and distributed platforms for Data Spaces for providing gaps, contributions and recomendations in the areas of Digital Twin and Data Spaces.
Asset Administration Shell – Gaps and contributions
| Gaps | Description | Flex4Res contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Interoperability and standardisation Gap | Lack of Unified Standard/framework that cover all industrial protocols | Efforts to integrate AAS more closely with industry needs integrating with industrial protocols such as HTTP/RESTful APIs. |
| Lack of comprehensive tooling | there is still a lack of widely available, mature software tools that support the development, deployment, and management of AAS across various platforms | Contact Software, Basys, Dimofac |
| Dynamic data management | The AAS is often seen as a static representation of an asset, focusing on descriptive information | AAS Type 2 |
| Semantic modeling and interpretation | Develop and universal semantic models or industry-specific ontology frameworks that are widely accepted can address this gap | Resilience Data Model |
| Integration with legacy systems and data handling processing | Middleware solution or standardized APIs to bridge legacy systems and Introduce edge computing capabilities to the AAS architecture | 4 uses cases |
| Submodels to cover needs of industry requirements | specifically for Resilience, Schedulle and Transportation Systems | AAS Submodels at Macro, Meso and Micro Level and at use cases |
Data spaces – gaps and contributions
| Gaps | Description | Flex4Res contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol & interoperabilty limitations | Designed to work primarily within their own ecosystems and not between other data spaces | Combination of GAIA-X and IDS in a Compute-to-Data architecture. |
| Standardisation of interfaces | More standardised APIs and interfaces to enhance interoperability across different industries and ecosystems. Real challenge when it comes to achieving a plug-and-play experience. | Flex4Res data spaces framework with appropriate integration for IDS identity provider, IDS broker and IDS clearing hose should be done with OpenAPI. Some UIs are provided |
| Scalability | Improving scalability for large-scale data exchanges or multiple transactions, particularly in environments with complex data flows | Services and data sources in a federated catalogue enabling manufacturing companies to share data that is stored inside their infrastructure with Flex4Res services |
| Enhanced security mechanisms | Enchace security with more implementation with real data. Advancements in zero-trust architectures or quantum-resistant encryption Limited access control and encryption mechanisms. End-to-end encryption and authentication frameworks are not consistently | Provide a security environment an appropriate integration through configuration (IDS Identity Provider, IDS Broker, and IDS Clearing House) IDS Identity service verifies credentials. |
| Contract and policy management | Automatic negotiation of contracts between connectors remains fragmented, with some agreements still requiring manual intervention. Full enforcement is inconsistent | Data Space Framework is that is connected to Pontus-X services as Data Consumer with appropriate self-descriptions and policies |
| Integration of algorithms or AI tech | Provide use cases for integration of Algorithms or AI algorithms to share | Through Pontus-X uses participants can publish their data or algorithms using the web portal to all or selected participants in the ecosystem. Members of the data space can immediately run published algorithms on published data, employing “compute to data” |
