A plugin for the Eclipse AASX Package ExplorerTM (AASPE) demonstrating various results from the research project Asset Administration Shell for the Wiring Harness (VWS4LS) funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
A detailed description of the results of the various subprojects can be found here (German only).
- Download a current release of the AASPE from https://github.com/eclipse-aaspe/package-explorer/releases. This plugin was tested against version v2024-06-10.alpha but newer releases should also work unless there are major changes in the plugin architecture.
- Refer to the readme of AASPE for installation instructions.
- Download the latest release of this plugin from the releases.
- Unzip the contents of the plugin to the
pluginsfolder of you AASPE installation. - Note: After that, your
pluginsfolder should contain a folderAasxPluginVws4ls.
- Clone this repository
- Build the project
- Make sure that your version of AASPE uses exactly the same version of the built plugin code, by
- copying the build results to the plugin folder of AASPE as described in the installation section above,
- creating a symlink from the plugin folder of AASPE to your build output folder, or
- adjust the file
AasxPackageExplorer.options.jsonof your AASPE to include the build output folder.
- Start AASPE
- Attach the debugger to the running AASPE process, e.g. by selecting
Debug -> Attach to process...in Visual Studio
This plugin adds several actions to the AASPE. After completing the steps described in the Installation section and starting the AASPE, these actions should be available via Workspace -> Create... as shown in the following screenshot:
This section introduces several core concepts required to understand the functionality of the provided actions:
VWS4LS introduces the concept of equivalent assets/asset administration shells between different companies. For example, a Tier2 company provides a component used by an OEM. However, both identify these components differently (using their own interal identification system) and both keep their own data sets describing the component. When the OEM first "imports" a new component (e.g. into its own PLM system), the data provided by the Tier2 usually serves as a starting point.
Specific asset IDs are a concept to attach one or multiple IDs to an AAS. Thereby, each of these IDs can be given a name, semanticID and a subjectID to describe the context and meaning of this ID. An example for this is a part number (identified via the semanticID) in the classification system of a certain company (identified via the subjectID).
By copying such a specific asset ID from one AAS to a second AAS, an equivalence link is formed. This can for example be used for mapping part numbers between different companies/classification systems, e.g. when "importing" components from supplies as explained above.
In VWS4LS, a concept to describe the structure of a complex product by means of several BOMs (bills of material) was developed:
- The Product_BOM describes the simple components that a product is composed of.
- The Manufacturing_BOM describes the parts that are required to produce the product - this can be either simple components or sub-assemblies.
- The Configuration_BOM describes several configuration variants of the product.
Note: All mentioned BOMs are realized based on the IDTA submodel template Hierarchical Structures enabling Bills of Material (see https://industrialdigitaltwin.org/en/content-hub/submodels).
Note: The SameAs relationship described in the submodel template is used to interlink the different hierarchies.
This structure can be used for different types of products, e.g. a complete wire harness or a small subassembly based on a single component. Within the various BOMs, each element can point to its own asset/AAS thereby creating a linked network of AASes that iteratively describes how a product is manufactured.
VWS4LS describes a versioning concept where each version of a product specification is represented by a new AAS (representing the same asset). This enables the possibility to maintain different versions of a product specification and provide simple access to all versions simultaneously, e.g. via a single AAS repository.
The same concept applies to changed submodels, i.e. a new (clone) of a submodel is created for each new version. However, not every submodel necessarily needs to be updated when creating a new AAS version. This is e.g. the case when a new version only affects a certain submodel. This means that a new (version of an) AAS can also refere to submodels included by an older version of the same AAS.
In order to provide the possibility of building a version history, each AAS refers to the previous version, i.e. the AAS it has been derived from. This is realized by adding a custom Extension element to the new AAS that includes the relevant reference to the previous AAS version.
In VWS4LS, a concept for modeling of capabilities was developed based on an interim version of the IDTA submodel Capability Description (see https://industrialdigitaltwin.org/en/content-hub/submodels). The concept covers both the modeling of capabilities required to produce a certain product as well as of capabilities provided by a resource.
The concept explicitly covers the possibility to model capabilities as a result of combining a machine with a tool.
Ontop of the basic concept, a set of capabilities and associated parameters was developed in VWS4LS. The set of capabilities thereby covers the most relevant processes used in the production of wire harnesses.
The Vehicle Electric Container (VEC, see https://ecad-wiki.prostep.org/specifications/vec/) is specification that allows to create a detailed product model of a wire harness that can - among others - be serialized as XML. To incorporate such a product specification into the AAS ecosystem, the plugin provides the action Import a VEC file into an AAS.
This will
- create two submodels Product_BOM and Configuration_BOM (cf. Description of complex product structures) that describe the components and configurations that the wire harness represented by the VEC file consists of and
- create a ProductSpecification submodel that
- imports the VEC file and
- creates several links between the elements from the new Product_BOM and Configuration_BOM submodels and the elements within the VEC file.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select an existing AAS
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Import a VEC file into an AAS - Select the VEC file to be imported
To support the workflow of importing data from an existing AAS and creating an equivalent AAS under one's own ownership (see Linking of equivalent AASes/assets), the plugin provides the action Derive a new AAS for a different tier.
This will create a new AAS that contains
- a specific asset ID representing the part number of the asset from an existing AAS in order to create a link to this original asset and the associated AAS
- a specific asset ID representing the part number of the new asset
- a deep copy of all submodels from the existing AAS
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select an existing AAS in the AASPE
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Derive a new AAS for a different tier - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Name of the Derived AAS: The name of the new AAS to be created
- Part Number for the Derived Asset: The part number of the asset represented by the new AAS in the identification system of the "new" company, e.g.
123456789 - Subject ID for the derived AAS: The
subject IDof the company you want to derive a new AAS for (this should be a valid URL uniquely identifying the company, e.g.https://www.my-company.com)
When a product is designed, it can be described by a list of required components. Based on this list of components, available machinery and other factors, the manufacturing process is developed. One main question to be answered during this development is the design of the different production steps and the resulting subassemblies (cf. Description of complex product structures). To support this iterative derivation of subassemblies, the plugin provides the action Derive new subassembly from selected components.
This will
- create an AAS for the new subassembly with all required submodels
- modify the Manufacturing BOM of the existing AAS containting the selected entities to incorporate the new subassembly
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select one or multiple entities from a Product BOM for an existing product/subassembly
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Derive new subassembly from selected components - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Name of subassembly instance in the manufacturing BOM of existing AAS
- Name of subassembly AAS to be created
- Additionaly, for each selected entity, the dialog provides the option to set a (different) name that will be used to represent this entity in the new AAS
Similarly to the workflow describes in Derive new subassembly from selected components, there is also the possibility to reuse existing subassemblies when developing a new product. To support this, the plugin provides the action Reuse existing subassembly for selected components.
Instead of creating a new AAS, it will
- reuse an existing AAS describing a subassembly
- modify the Manufacturing BOM of the existing AAS containting the selected entities to incorporate the existing subassembly
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select one or multiple entities from the Product BOM of an existing product/subassembly
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Reuse existing subassembly for selected components - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Name of subassembly instance in the manufacturing BOM of existing AAS
- Subassembly AAS to Reuse: Select an existing AAS representing a subassembly
- Based on the selected existing subassembly, configure a mapping between the components within the two AASes
Configurations represent variants of a complex product and are represented in the Configuration_BOM (see Description of complex product structures). Each configuration is represented by a (sub-)set of subassemblies that it includes. In order to create these associations between configuration and subassemblies, the plugin provides the action Associate selected subassemblies with a configuration.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select one or multiple entites from the Manufacturing BOM of an existing product
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Associate selected subassemblies with a configuration - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Configuration to associate with selected subassemblies: An existing configuration from the Configuration BOM of the existing product
During product development, a linked network of AASes describing products, subassemblies and components is created (see Description of complex product structures). All these AASes represent types.
After the development is finished, actual product instances are created which are also represented by there own AASes. To initialize such an AAS representing a product instance to be produced, the plugin provides the action Create wire harness order for selected configurations.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select one or multiple entites from the Configuration BOM of an existing product
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Create wire harness order for selected configurations - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Order Number: The order number for the production order
In order to support the creation of new AAS/submodel versions as described in Versioning Concept, the plugin provides the action Create a new version of the selected AAS/submodel.
This will create a new version of an existing AAS/submodel and automatically set the reference to the previous version. In case an AAS is selected, the new version of the AAS will reference the same (old) versions of the submodels referenced by the old version of the AAS. New versions of the required (i.e. changed) submodels can be created afterwards using the same plugin action.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select either an AAS or a submodel
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Create a new version of the selected AAS/submodel - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Version: The version number to be set for the new AAS/submodel
- (if a submodel was selected) Delete (reference to) old version: Delete a reference to the old version of the submodel from the AAS (i.e. replace the existing submodel reference)
As described in Linking of equivalent AASes/assets, specific asset IDs representing the part number of an asset are the basis for describing equivalences between different assets.
To create such an asset ID, the plugin provides the action Create a new specific asset ID representing the part number.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select an AAS
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Create a new specific asset ID representing the part number - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Subject IDS: The
subject IDof the company owning this AAS (this should be a valid URL uniquely identifying the company, e.g.https://www.my-company.com) - Part Number: The part number of the asset represented by this AAS according to the identification system of the company, e.g.
123456789
- Subject IDS: The
To check if a machine offers a certain capability required to produce a product, the plugin provides the action Capability Matching - Check if a machine can provide a required capability.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select a required capability, i.e. a CapabilityContainer that is part of a RequiredCapabilities submodel.
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Capability Matching - Check if a machine can provide a required capability - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Machine AAS to Check: Select an available AAS representing a machine. This AAS should provide an OffereCapabilities submodel.
This will check if the machine (potentially with the help of a required tool) is able to fulfill the required capabilities. The result of this check is written to the log output of AASPE which can be opened at the bottom right corner of the window.
To create a new required capability based on the list of capabilities and associated parameters defined during VWS4LS (see Modeling of required/offered capabilities), the plugin provides the action Create a Required Capability within a Capability Submodel.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select a RequiredCapabilities submodel
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Create a Required Capability within a Capability Submodel - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Required Capability: Select one of the capabilities defined as part of VWS4LS
- According to the selected capabilities, fill the properties with required values
- Properties that are not important can be left blank
Within the selected submodel, this will create a new CapabilityContainer, including the actual Capability as well as all Properties and the specified values.
To create a new offered capability based on the list of capabilities and associated parameters defined during VWS4LS (see Modeling of required/offered capabilities), the plugin provides the action Create an Offered Capability within a Capability Submodel.
To execute the action, follow the following steps:
- Select an OfferedCapabilities submodel
- Execute
Workspace -> Create... -> VWS4LS: Create an Offered Capability within a Capability Submodel - Fill in the required fields in the dialog
- Offered Capability: Select one of the capabilities defined as part of VWS4LS
- According to the selected capabilities, fill the properties with required values
- Each value represents a constraint for the given properties
- Depending on the property, enter either a fixed value, a list of values seprated by
;or a range where the lower and upper bound is separated by a; - Properties that are not constrained by the resource can be left empty
Within the selected submodel, this will create a new CapabilityContainer, including the actual Capability as well as all Properties and the specified value constraints.