Applied Asset Administration Shell in digitalization concepts for the industry
A Key to Improving Service for Machinery and Plant Manufacturers
In today’s increasingly connected world, machinery and plant manufacturers are facing new challenges in providing service to their customers. With products becoming more complex and interconnected, it is becoming more difficult to keep track of all the data and information that is needed to provide effective service. In parallel, the digitalization process within the company is often just fragmented, mostly incomplete and the interoperability between systems isn’t really achieved.
These very general trends hold not only for the manufacturer but also for their customers. Especially in the field of after-sales, maintenance, and service, this leads to even larger challenges because here two process worlds collide. In this blog post, I’ll try to give an insight into possible perspectives and strategies to overcome these challenges and how digitalization roadmaps should change.
A key concept to gain ground and get ahead of the development is to consequently rely on standards in all parts of your digitalization solutions.
For CONTACT Software, the key concept here is the use of the Asset Administration Shell as described by the IDTA. Proposed by an alliance of ZVEI and VDMA, it is now the vendor-independent standard for digital twins, developed by the large ecosystem of member companies of the IDTA.
The digital twin can be a powerful tool for manufacturers to address a large number of the challenges mentioned before, as it is a virtual representation of the physical product or system the manufacturer sells. It can be used to collect, store, and analyze data from the physical product, and to simulate the behavior of the product in a virtual environment. This has large potential in the fields of product-associated services that can help to realize additional value:
By improving predictive maintenance:
By analyzing data from the digital twin, manufacturers can identify potential problems before they cause a failure. This can reduce downtime and increase uptime.
By automating service tasks:
The digital twin can be used to automate tasks such as remote diagnostics, troubleshooting, and repair instructions. This can free up service engineers to focus on more complex tasks.
By personalizing service offerings and warranty models:
The digital twin can be used to provide personalized service to each customer and adjust warranty models to use case-specific requirements. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty.
One of the challenges of implementing a digital twin in such a form is the need to integrate data from a variety of sources. This can be a complex and time-consuming task, especially in organizations with heterogeneous IT environments. The Asset Administration Shell can help to address this challenge by the great collection of data models it consists of.
As early adopters in the field of AAS, the implementation by CONTACT Software provides a common interface for accessing data from a variety of sources, including product nameplate information, software versions, time series data or even service case data itself.
This makes it easier to integrate data from different systems and applications, and to build a single, unified view of the physical product in an “as maintained” state.
New warranty model for fully digitalized products
Traditionally, machine tool manufacturers provide warranties for their products, covering defects in materials and workmanship for a specified period. However, these warranties often have limitations and exclusions, and unexpected breakdowns or failures can occur outside the warranty period, resulting in significant downtime and financial losses. This is especially true for manufacturers of machine tool spindles.
By incorporating sensors into machine tool spindles, the manufacturers can collect valuable data on spindle performance, including temperature, vibration, and other operating parameters. This data is transmitted to an edge device, where a preliminary analysis of the current operational state is performed. The edge devices redirect the results, including a use case-specific amount of unprocessed raw data to a central IoT platform, where further analysis using advanced algorithms and machine learning techniques can take place.
IoT platforms with extended knowledge of ongoing production processes, precise production orders, or extended knowledge of the product itself, like the full internal component structure, can add additional value to the measured data. In some cases, the extraction and preparation of specific error case data can be important to be able to deliver the case-specific data to an external AI service, which might be able to do some more domain-specific error classification. The interactions with external and internal systems are even easier, the more confirmative all the involved software solutions are to the leading industry standards, like CONTACT Software pioneers with the AAS.
Such AAS-ready IoT infrastructure solutions enable additional benefits, like component-specific predictive maintenance, where the included sensor technology allows manufacturers to identify potential issues before they lead to breakdowns. By analyzing data on spindle performance, manufacturers can detect abnormal patterns or deviations that may indicate impending problems. This allows them to schedule proactive maintenance interventions, minimizing the risk of unexpected downtime.
This directly leads to the reduction of operation costs by detecting and resolving issues proactively. Predictive maintenance helps prevent expensive repairs or replacements and is also affecting the warranty concepts of manufacturers. With sensor technology and AAS-ready IoT solutions, manufacturers can offer extended coverage beyond the traditional warranty period.
The continuous monitoring of spindle performance enables tool manufacturers to identify and address issues early on, preventing minor problems from escalating into major failures.
This extended coverage provides peace of mind to customers, knowing that their investments are protected for a longer duration.
The data collected from IoT sensors also provides manufacturers with valuable insights into the performance of their machine tool spindles. This data can be used to analyze warranty claims and identify recurring issues. Manufacturers can then take steps to address these issues during the design and production process, reducing the likelihood of similar problems in the future, like with CONTACT Closed-Loop-Engineering Tools.
In conclusion, leveraging AAS-ready IoT solutions to enhance machine tool spindle service and warranty offers significant benefits to manufacturers. By enabling predictive maintenance, extended warranty coverage, and reduced operational costs, manufacturers can improve product reliability, increase customer satisfaction, and gain a competitive advantage. Customers appreciate the manufacturer’s commitment to providing reliable products and services and the ability to predict and prevent issues demonstrates the manufacturer’s dedication to customer satisfaction, fostering trust and loyalty. Moreover, the data gathered from IoT sensors provides valuable insights for continuous improvement, leading to the development of more efficient and reliable machine tools.
We really think it’s now time to fill the Asset Administration Shell with life and a lot of exciting customer stories!
About CONTACT Research. CONTACT Research is a dynamic research group dedicated to collaborating with innovative minds from the fields of science and industry. Our primary mission is to develop cutting-edge solutions for the engineering and manufacturing challenges of the future. We undertake projects that encompass applied research, as well as technology and method innovation. An independent corporate unit within the CONTACT Software Group, we foster an environment where innovation thrives.
