Standards for Industry 4.0

Article

Various standards for Industry 4.0

26. May 2021

Automation by computer has long since found its way into industrial production – now it is slowly but surely going a step further. We are talking about smart factories, cloud computing and the Internet of Things: Industry 4.0.

Increasing digitalization and intelligent networking of machines saves time and resources and opens up new possibilities along the entire value chain. In order to enable information-driven production, i.e. to make information machine-readable and exchangeable, standards must be established. They help to describe products and thus pave the way for the intelligent provision of information. The ECLASS, VDI 2770 and iiRDS standards are relevant for technical communication. We would like to provide some clarity: How do these standards differ from each other and where do they interact?

Standards in technical documentation

The ECLASS standard

ECLASS is a cross-manufacturer and cross-sector data standard with ISO-compliant features that was developed 20 years ago by the association of large German industrial companies of the same name. The ECLASS standard classifies products and services in 4 hierarchy levels. They consist of classes, keywords, characteristics, values and units. All products and services are thus clearly described. With the standardized master data, processes in data management, controlling and sales can be designed more efficiently and effectively. The data can be provided intelligently and exchanged digitally, thus delivering added value along the value chain.
ECLASS describes products and services and not their documentation, as is the case with the iiRDS and VDI 2770 standards. However, ECLASS can be used in VDI 2207 for object referencing with IRDIs and interaction between ECLASS and iiRDS is also possible and useful. More on this later.

VDI 2770 Standard

The VDI e.V. (Association of German Engineers) develops cross-industry technical guidelines. The standard VDI 2770 Sheet 1 (Operation of process plants – Minimum requirements for digital manufacturer information for the process industry – Fundamentals) describes the standardized nature of digital manufacturer information. Classification, structure, metadata and file formats of information are defined and thus provided in a structured and standardized manner. The standard is primarily intended to simplify processes in the output of information – on the part of manufacturers, operators and users. In addition to internal information, supplier documents can also be integrated.
documents are classified, i.e. divided into groups and categories and saved as a PDF. In addition, an XML document with metadata is created and then both are saved in a ZIP container. The VDI 2270 standard describes complete documents in a package.

iiRDS - intelligent information Request and Delivery Standard

iiRDS stands for intelligent information Request and Delivery Standard, which enables platform-independent and content-neutral retrieval and delivery of digital information. The standard is based on a modular structure of information and metadata that describe and link this information in more detail. iiRDS basically consists of three components – a package format that allows exchange between different content systems, a metadata model that classifies the information and makes it combinable, and the specification that describes the package format and metadata concept. iiRDS does not standardize content, but merely defines the delivery format so that information from different systems can be combined. In concrete terms, this means that information from different CMSs is standardized with iiRDS and can be provided via a central content delivery portal. iiRDS was developed back in 2016 by a group of experts from tekom (Gesellschaft für Technische Kommunikation e.V.) in order to fundamentally change the provision of information in technical communication. More about iiRDS here.

Interaction of standards for Industry 4.0

iiRDS and VDI 2270 initially developed separately in parallel. Both standards enable the provision and digital exchange of technical documentation. However, the VDI standard is primarily used in the process industry and describes entire technical documentation documents. iiRDS also offers a metadata concept, but does not normally describe an entire document in a package, but rather individual topics, i.e. smaller information units that can be put together in a modular way.

The iiRDS is not intended to be an isolated standard, but to build a bridge between the standards. The iiRDS consortium and the VDI have therefore decided to work together and have adapted the standards accordingly so that they complement each other better and are compatible. The latest version of iiRDS, for example, allows nested packages to be created: hybrid package from iiRDS and VDI 2770.

Since 2020, there has been cooperation between ECLASS e.V. and the iiRDS consortium to describe and differentiate the two standards and highlight their joint potential. The aim is to integrate core metadata from iiRDS into ECLASS.
ECLASS describes data on products, not their documentation. iiRDS is intended for technical documentation. Due to the open nature of the standard, iiRDS can link the metadata that classifies products with the documentation and bring them together as a unit.

What does the future hold?

One thing is certain: advancing digitalization will make the intelligent provision and use of information indispensable. This requires metadata, overarching models and standardized formats that allow information from different systems to be retrieved and semantic relationships to be established. The future will show how the standards develop and merge further.