WITTENSTEIN is implementing the Asset Administration Shell in the digital product catalog as a service for designers

The Digital Twin links the physical world with digital reality. Drive technology manufacturer WITTENSTEIN is implementing an Asset Administration Shell (AAS) for more and more drive solutions, processes and services along the entire value chain - in other words, standardized Digital Twins with all the important information about a product. Thanks to the cooperation with the software company CADENAS, design engineers can now also generate and access these Digital Twins via WITTENSTEIN's digital product catalog.

A problem many companies face is that they can only provide pre-built Asset Administration Shell for standard variants, but not for configurable products with an infinite number of variants. The ability to generate models in over 100 other native and neutral formats provides optimal support for the engineering process.

The integration of sub-models of the Asset Administration Shell is a significant development. This enhancement offers decisive advantages, especially regarding the ongoing product lifecycle. The use of the Asset Administration Shell enables efficient and interoperable data management, which leads to improved integration and collaboration in different phases of the product lifecycle. This provides not only flexibility, but also the ability to reuse data throughout the customer and product lifecycle.

WITTENSTEIN is already successfully using the administration shell for manufactured product instances as the basis for innovative smart services and in the after-sales area. The digital product catalog can now be used to retrieve basic technical data, global contact information, identifying product features, handover documents and 3D models for product types.

The further integration of standardized submodels plays a central role here. The Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA), the user organization for the Asset Administration Shell, is already actively working on a standardized submodel for the CAD data exchange requirements of 3D models.

Through the cooperation with CADENAS, collaborative engineering will be promoted and further intensified in the coming years within the framework of the German government's Factory-X funding project. "The AAS export in the CADENAS product configurator enables us to achieve deeper integration and end-to-end dynamic data generation and use along the entire customer journey with the Digital Twin," explains Bernd Vojanec, Senior Expert Industrial Digital Twin at WITTENSTEIN. As an expert in the field of Digital Twins, Bernd Vojanec will also be a speaker at the 22nd Industry Forum in Augsburg, where he will inform interested trade visitors about the use of the Asset Administration Shell, including the Digital Twin.

The Administration Shell is another step toward optimizing the value chain for developers, manufacturers, and consumers, and ultimately the entire service along a product's lifecycle. Continuous development makes the complexity of products more transparent and comprehensible. Active participation in IDTA working groups and close partnerships with vendors enable CADENAS to deliver the Asset Administration Shell to the market according to the current specification.

"Through close cooperation with WITTENSTEIN and the IDTA, we have jointly laid the foundation for being able to generate administration shells for any possible product configuration on demand and make them traceable. This gives our partners the necessary freedom to take care of the instance issue," says Thomas Lang, Senior Key Account Manager at CADENAS and an expert in the field of Virtual Commissioning and Asset Administration Shells. CADENAS plans to provide the latest versions of the Asset Administration Shell in the future, based on the specifications that are still in progress.