Preamble

The aim of this document is to define selected specifications of the structure of the Administration Shell to enable the meaningful exchange of information about assets between partners in a value creation network.

This part of the document focuses on how such information needs to be processed and structured. In order to define these specifications, the document formally stipulates some structural principles of the Administration Shell. This part does not describe technical interfaces of the Administration Shell or other systems to exchange information, protocols, or interaction patterns.

This document focuses on:

This document assumes familiarity with the metamodel of the Asset Administration Shell as described in Part 1 of the document series.

The main stakeholders addressed in this document are architects and software developers aiming to implement a digital twin using the Asset Administration Shell in an interoperable way. Additionally, the content can also be used as input for discussions with international standardization organizations and further collaborations.

Please consult the continuously updated reading guide [11] for an overview of documents on the Asset Administration Shell. The reading guide gives advice on which documents should be read depending on the role of the reader.

[ECMA-376] ECMA-376. Office Open XML file formats. Online]. Available: https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-376/

[ISO/IEC 29500-2] ISO/IEC 29500-2. Document description and processing languages — Office Open XML file formats — Part 2: Open packaging conventions

Terms, Definitions and Abbreviations provides terms and definitions as well as abbreviations, both for abbreviations used in the document and for abbreviations that may be used for elements of the metamodel defined in this document.

Introduction gives a short introduction into the content of this document in the context of the Asset Administration Shell.

Basic Concepts and Leading Picture explains some basic concept and the leading picture guiding the usage of the specified file exchange format.

Package File Format for the Asset Administration Shell (AASX) (normative) is the normative part of the document. It specifies how the information of one or more Administration Shells can be packed into a compound file format (AASX). Background information with respect to this format can be found in Annex Background Information.

In general, normative clauses are characterized by adding the prefix (normative) to the title of the clause.

Finally, Summary and Outlook summarizes the content and gives an outlook on future work.

The Annex contains additional background information on the exchange format (Annex Background Information).

Metamodel changes compared to previous versions are described in Changes.

The bibliography can be found in Bibliography.