New data space facilitates entry into digitisation

Successful launch of the AAS Dataspace for Everybody in Kaiserslautern

On 7 May 2024, the official kick-off ceremony of the AAS Dataspace for Everybody took place – a pioneering platform that enables also small and medium-sized enterprises to access Data Spaces, Digital Twins and Asset Administration Shells (AAS). More than 60 representatives from research and industry came together at Fraunhofer IESE in Kaiserslautern to discuss the added value and potential applications of digital data spaces.

In a world where digitisation and data management are becoming increasingly important, industrial data spaces are also attracting more and more attention for manufacturing companies. Cross-company data spaces, such as those being researched in the Manufacturing-X initiative, can play a key role in helping companies achieve economies of scale, open up new business areas and thus operate overall more efficiently. Fraunhofer IESE and the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) have addressed this issue together with NetApp Deutschland GmbH, Plattform Industrie 4.0, Xitaso GmbH and congatec GmbH and developed the AAS Dataspace for Everybody, a software-as-a-service solution.

User-friendly solution based on Eclipse BaSyx

The AAS Dataspace for Everybody offers companies a user-friendly platform for sharing data and preconfigured software solutions based on the open source middleware Eclipse BaSyx. With this tool, companies can create Digital Twins of their production lines, calculate their carbon footprint and implement Digital Product Passports. ‘The software containers in combination with the Eclipse BaSyx middleware used are absolutely unique on the market,’ explains Dr Thomas Kuhn, Division Manager ‘Embedded Systems’ at Fraunhofer IESE, and adds: ‘With the AAS Dataspace for Everybody, companies of all sizes have the opportunity to integrate data spaces seamlessly into their production and thus benefit from significant time and cost savings in their digitisation.

Industry leaders in dialogue on data spaces

The highlights of the opening event included the various applications and use case scenarios of the AAS Dataspace for Everybody. Prominent industrial companies such as SAP, Wittenstein, Thyssenkrupp, Bosch and Mitsubishi were on site and shared their experiences of digital data spaces and Industry 4.0. In addition, research and industry partners gave keynote speeches on the diverse possibilities of the utilisation.

‘The AAS Dataspace for Everybody is an outstanding milestone for the development of industrial ecosystems based on the Asset Administration Shell. Together with our partners Fraunhofer IESE, NetApp Germany and others, we are proud to provide this opportunity to test business processes along the supply chain in a real industrial ecosystem. Working together, we are advancing the industrial implementation of interoperable Digital Twins,’ says Meik Billmann, Managing Director of IDTA.

‘With the AAS Dataspace for Everybody, at Wittenstein we want to publicise the Asset Administration Shells we have already created, network and establish connectivity ─ from engineering to after sales. We also see great added value in the data that we receive back if we also share our product data and models in this data space,’ adds Bernd Vojanec, Senior Expert Industrial Digital Twin at the WITTENSTEIN group.

Project partners:

congatec GmbH, Fraunhofer IESE, Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA), NetApp Deutschland GmbH, Plattform Industrie 4.0, Xitaso GmbH