Integration of Existing Cyber-Physical Manufacturing Systems into a Common Information Model Sebastian Schmied * Selvine G. Mathias * Daniel Großmann * Ulrich Jumar ** * Technische Hochschule Ingolstadt, Zentrum f¨ ur Angewandte Forschung, 85049 Ingolstadt, Germany (e-mail: [ Sebastian.Schmied, SelvineGeorge.Mathias, Daniel.Grossmann ]@thi.de ). ** Institut f. Automation und Kommunikation e.V., 39106 Magdeburg, Germany (e-mail: Ulrich.Jumar@ifak.eu) Abstract: In order to be able to serve constantly new customer requirements, manufacturing systems must be able to adapt to frequent changes. In addition, repeatedly objects are removed or added to the network. To control and monitor such a constantly changing system a mapping of existing manufacturing systems into a common information model is necessary. This model describes information that is produced and stored in different entities of the complete system. To create a common address space and expose the relations between the devices an aggregation of every element in the system is needed. This paper describes a methodology for the creation of an information model for a complete manufacturing environment, followed by an approach for the aggregation of the singular system entities. The concept of this paper is illustrated with a demonstrator. The results of this approach have been discussed in the following sections along with the proposal for further directions. Keywords: Information Model, Aggregation, OPC UA, Cyber-physical manufacturing systems 1. INTRODUCTION Manufacturing enterprises are encountering a variety of challenges today. Examples are ever-shorter product life cycles, changing market conditions and a increasing de- mand for individualized products. Therefore, there is an increasing demand for flexible manufacturing systems as stated by Grochowski et al. (2020) and Dotoli et al. (2018). A fundamental feature of flexible manufacturing systems is that they can respond to changes in both the product and the production process. Especially in order-oriented manufacturing systems many different products are pro- duced. In order to ensure the highest possible efficiency, a uniform language is necessary with which the information is communicated during the production process. Most manufacturing systems have grown over many years and therefore consist of heterogeneous information sources. These provide information in a specific manner, depending on the single machine or database. If an exchange between several participants of the system is necessary, these inter- faces are usually programmed for a specific application and can not be used by other participants in the production system. In order to enable data exchange between all participants of a production system, an information model is needed which is a semantic description of all data available in the production process. For the technical integration of all elements of the system, a concept for aggregation is needed. Thus, vertical and horizontal integration between all levels and components of the production system can be achieved. The creation of information models can either be done by industrial organizations e.g. associations of machine manufacturers or on user side (Schmied et al., 2019). If a model is created by the manufacturer of a machine, all potentially necessary datasets are added and the infor- mation model is based on the detailed knowledge about the function of the machine. The collaboration of different machine vendors in the same field enables standardization of information models as it is for example done with OPC UA companion specifications. In contrast, it is more relevant to the user side whether all information required for the specific production process is available in the information model. In addition, certain datasets such as the machine state must be standardized within manufacturing systems to provide comparability between different facilities. If an information model is to be created for a production system, it makes sense to combine both approaches. On the one hand, a company has to determine which data it wants to retrieve from the information model and which data records are standardized throughout the company. On the other hand, preliminary work by industrial organizations can be used and thus the process of creating information models can be shortened. Due to the large number of components in use, an information model is not always Preprints of the 21st IFAC World Congress (Virtual) Berlin, Germany, July 12-17, 2020 Copyright lies with the authors 11052