In the application scenarios of Industrie 4.0, production and logistic systems are constantly adapted to changing requirements and value chains. Therefore, engineering tasks are not only necessary in the initial design and construction of a plant but will be required throughout the whole lifetime of a plant, to adjust to the dynamics. This engineering will hopefully be “seamless” over time and among the involved organizations. A digital model – today often called “digital twin” – can support the engineering significantly.

This document is intended to describe the usage of a digital plant model so that a broad community better understands the objectives of this concept to be able to generate benefits from its usage.

The Platform Industrie 4.0 issues this publication in collaboration with the Standardization Council Industrie 4.0 (SCI4.0), the Robot Revolution & Industrial IoT Initiative (RRI) and the VDI/VDE Society Measurement and Automatic Control (VDI/VDE-GMA).