German

A key idea in the standardization of Industrie 4.0 is to jointly address the transnational opportunities and challenges of digitization. The objective for successful international standardization of industrial equipment is the consensual harmonization of Industrie 4.0 concepts on a global level. Here, initial harmonization work on reference architecture models for smart manufacturing is showing success and continues to require extensive cooperation between countries to harmonize a binding regulatory model.

In the area of international cooperation, a distinction must be made between bilateral and multilateral country cooperation. Multilateral cooperation includes political alliances such as the G20 and the European Union. The activities and initiatives of the European Commission will be dealt with separately.

Within Europe, there are bilateral or trilateral agreements with the EU countries. These cooperation agreements form the basis for harmonizing future work. The production digitization initiatives from Germany, France and Italy have agreed on trilateral cooperation to strengthen and support digitization processes in their respective production areas. European efforts are also to be promoted.

As a rule, the cooperating countries are actively represented in international standardisation, so that early, consensual cooperation is conducive to achieving the desired results. The respective country cooperations are used to synchronize these direct channels of discussion with the work in the corresponding international standardization bodies.

The DKE German Commission for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies in DIN and VDE represents the German interests in the IEC with headquarters in Geneva/Switzerland. Germany, with its approx. 3,500 experts, holds a leading position in the IEC and provides approx. 21% of the committee chairs and 20% of the secretaries.

IEC System Committee Smart Manufacturing (IEC/SyC)

The IEC Standardization Evaluation Group Smart Manufacturing (IEC/SEG 7), whose main task was to develop a concept for comprehensive and bundled handling of the topic of Smart Manufacturing, completed its work in 2017 and prepared a proposal for the mandate of the newly established IEC Systems Committee Smart Manufacturing (IEC/SyC). The IEC/SyC is to be located directly under the Standardisation Management Board (SMB) of IEC and is expected to begin its work in the second quarter of 2018. In addition to coordinating standardization activities, identifying gaps and overlaps, the IEC/SyC's tasks include cooperation between relevant standards organizations and Standardization Development Organizations (SDOs).

IEC Technical Committee TC 65

DIN represents German interests in ISO, which has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. With more than 11,000 experts, Germany holds a leading position in ISO, is represented in 327 Technical Committees (TC) and runs 54 secretariats.

ISO: Technical Committee 184 (ISO/TC 184)

The Technical Committee ISO/TC 184 consists of 20 active member states and 24 observer states (so-called Observers) and thus comprises a total of 44 states. In terms of content, ISO/TC 184 works on standardization in the field of automation systems and their integration for design, procurement, manufacturing, production and delivery, support, maintenance and disposal of products and related services. The standardization areas include information systems, automation and control systems and integration technologies.

ISO: Smart Manufacturing Coordinating Committee (ISO/SMCC)

In September 2016, the ISO Industrie 4.0 Strategy Group successfully completed its activities. In order to continue the international activities, the ISO/SMCC was founded as the successor body. It exists for an initial period of two years and is staffed with representatives of the relevant technical committees. Altogether, representatives from 21 ISO committees as well as one representative each from IEC and ITU were nominated for participation. Under German leadership, the ISO/SMCC has since then actively promoted international work on the topic of Industrie 4.0. The aim is to coordinate the topic comprehensively and to develop recommendations for implementation, especially with regard to a common international approach. At the same time, a national mirror committee was implemented in order to offer interested parties a national platform to significantly contribute to the international work.

ISO: Strategic Advisory Group (ISO/SAG) Industrie 4.0

One of the main tasks of ISO/SAG I4.0 is to work out a precise definition of Industrie 4.0 and to take stock of standards, standards projects and use cases that already exist or are in progress. Based on these findings, gaps in standardization are then identified and recommendations for action are developed.

Due to the technical overlap of Smart Manufacturing and Industrie 4.0 on the part of IEC and ISO, ISO/IEC JWG 21 was founded and the representatives of IEC and ISO met for the first time in June 2017 in Frankfurt am Main for the constituent meeting.

The main task of ISO/IEC JWG 21 is the development of Smart Manufacturing reference models, especially the various aspects related to the life cycle and the technical and/or organizational hierarchies of objects (assets). In addition, the development of a basic architecture for Smart Manufacturing components is planned as an essential part of the virtual representation of objects (Industrie 4.0 component).

The contributions from the different countries will be consolidated into uniform models that do not contradict each other, and according to the results a new work item offering will be developed and disseminated.