Asset Administration Shells (AAS) and their associated submodels, which are essential components of Industry 4.0 are designed to ensure compliance and interoperability. It is crucial that AAS must be seamlessly integrated and compliant with industry standards for users in industrial manufacturing. As submodels serve as the core components of the AAS, ensuring their compliance with relevant standards is imperative. The manual validation process of submodels can be complex, time-consuming, and error-prone. This work builds on a previously developed framework that introduced recursive validation mechanisms, flexible input handling (including direct JSON input, API-based links, and file uploads for AAS and submodels), and adherence to Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) submodel standards. In this paper, we extend the framework by incorporating real-time, MQTT-based event detection to enable automated validation of submodel updates. Furthermore, the proposed system supports the validation of multiple submodels within a single AAS as well as multiple AASs in parallel, enabling large-scale conformity testing. The test results are communicated to the user through an intuitive and user-friendly interface designed to support engineers and IT departments. Evaluation demonstrates that the system maintains an optimal validation time even as the number of tested submodels increases, ensuring the potential for large-scale use. This research improves the efficiency and accuracy of digital twin management, a key concern of Industry 4.0.

The importance of comprehensive automated component test solutions has been underlined by the growing need for adaptable, demand-driven manufacturing plants. Software solutions, which play a key role in the flexibility and complexity of a plant, contribute significantly to this trend. A fundamental aspect of this is the interoperability of Industry 4.0 components. Despite the availability of numerous software environments for the configuration of Industry 4.0 components, there is a lack of generally accepted definitions for the implementation of test strategies. In particular, the integration of legacy systems requires critical support. Ideally, this should be done semi or fully automated. This paper presents a test environment concept based on established software engineering test methodologies and the use of the Asset Administration Shell (AAS). A testing strategy for Industry 4.0 components using a ticket system is proposed. The approach uses descriptors to facilitate test execution without further software development effort within the native system component environment.

The transition towards Industry 4.0 requires the modernisation of legacy systems. However, this transformation introduces complexity, mainly due to the variety of data formats and interfaces resulting from the heterogeneity of the used components. For seamless interoperability in Industry 4.0 applications, a harmonised data base is of vital importance. The Asset Administration Shell (AAS), as a standardised digital twin of assets, plays a key role in facilitating interoperable, data-centric solutions in the Industry 4.0 landscape. The prospect of automated data integration offers the potential to reduce errors and optimise the process of digitising legacy systems. This raises the question of what extensions and components within the AAS infrastructure are necessary to realise such automation. In response, this paper presents an architectural concept for integrating legacy systems into the AAS framework. Using an articulated robot as a tangible example, the process of interconnecting data points via the OPC UA protocol is illustrated. Additionally, a prototype is presented, capable of enabling vertical data integration via the BaSyx DataBridge, thus showcasing the notable advantages of automating the incorporation of legacy devices into the AAS. The shown solution retains flexibility and is readily applicable to a variety of systems and scenarios as required.

The use of industrial controllers in the environment of changeable industrial plants requires the system-wide description of plants with their components and associated capabilities. One way of description is provided by the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) as a digital representative of industrial controller. On its basis, multi-vendor interoperability is created, which is an essential requirement in changeable industrial environments. For the synchronization of plant segments in the environment of AAS control components are offered. In the current environment of production lines/plants, the PackML offers a possibility for functional interoperability. It can be used to provide essential information from the plant environment. The paper presents, among other things, the transfer of the approach from PackML to the AAS level and its use in existing plants.

Due to their flexible functionality and variable system design, convertible production environments exhibit a high degree of complexity. The complexity arises, among other things, from the heterogeneity of the components used, their scalability, their interaction within the systems, and the cross-system communication. Software solutions in the environment of automation systems, among others, have a great influence on the flexibility and complexity of the system. For their use, the cross-system description of plants with their components including the associated capabilities and a preferably standardized coordination of resources is desirable. One possibility of description is offered by the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) as a digital representative of resources. For the synchronization of plants and their segments, control components are suitable in the environment of AAS. In current industrial environments, solutions with PackML are established at the level of industrial controllers. They offer a possibility of functional interoperability and synchronization of plant segments. In the paper, the addition of the PackML approach to synchronization at the control level and the provision of the relevant information at the AAS level is shown.