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Type
Instance
Development
Maintenance/
usage
Production
Maintenance/
usage
Layers
Business
Functional
Information
Communication
Integration
Asset
Control Device
Station
Work Centers
Enterprise
Connected World
Hierarchy Levels
IEC 62264 // IEC 61512
Field Device
Product
Life Cycle & Value Stream
IEC 62890
RAMI 4.0
The first real result to come from the platform is the Reference Archi
tecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0), which was created as part
of a working group for “Reference Architectures, Standards, and
Standardization” under the leadership of Dr. Peter Adolphs, CTO at
Pepperl+Fuchs. The three-dimensional model allows all the essential
elements of the Industry 4.0 concept to be covered – from simple field
devices, such as an intelligent sensor, to complex, globally networked
production systems, taking into account the entire life cycle and all
the organizational layers of the company.
The following section will take a brief glance at the horizontal and verti-
cal axes of the model, to highlight the importance of having a standard
communication system. The horizontal axis, “Hierarchy Levels”, describes
how an entity is classified into the former hierarchies within the organi-
zational levels of a smart factory in Industry 4.0. In this regard, the
RAMI model covers aspects ranging from the analysis of a product to
be manufactured through the field device (e.g. an intelligent sensor),
all the way to the “Connected World” outside of a production plant.
The vertical axis, “Layers”, regulates the information technology aspects
and provides digital maps of the assets of production plants. Taking
the example of a sensor, the importance of the layers becomes obvious:
The base is formed by the asset, in this case, the device, i.e. the sensor.
The following integration layer covers everything that is necessary to
make the sensor data available to the next layers. Above this is the
communication layer, which creates a secure connection between the
field device and the higher-level application software. The information
layer encompasses the digital map of the assets, also known as the
administration shell. In the functional layer, rules and decision-making
logic are implemented. The top layer – the business layer – represents
the business models and the business process as a whole.
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