This tutorial provides an introduction to the Industry 4.0 modeling approach of Asset Administration Shells (AAS, IEC 63278-1 ED1). AAS aim at model-based interoperability on the shop floor or in value chains, e.g., for products in terms of their digital product passport or their product carbon footprints. Based on the AAS meta model, the Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA)1, who is coordinating the standardization efforts on AAS, is currently specifying various data AAS (submodel) data formats, out of which 19 were published in June 2024 and further 66 are announced.

We introduce the AAS approach and discuss recent industrial use cases, the meta-model, serialization formats, available tooling and, in particular, recent model-driven research approaches for AAS approaches in different communities. As part of the discussion, we compare AAS to related approaches like OPC UA as well as scal- ability and expressiveness of AAS. To a certain degree, research results stem from our own work on realizing the AI-integrating open-source Industry 4.0 platform oktoflow2, which has been de- veloped in the funded project IIP-Ecosphere3 based on an industrial requirements collection. At it’s core, oktoflow is steered by a ver- tical integration of AAS and provides model-driven data stream integration of services and connectors for relevant standards, in- cluding AAS and IDTA AAS submodel templates. Besides many other open-source components, oktoflow relies for modeling capa- bilities on EASy-Producer, an open-source toolset for variability modeling and instantiation. Oktoflow was presented in terms of Industry 4.0 demonstrators at industrial fairs like the Hannover Fair or the EMO fair.

As an outcome, the participants of the tutorial will understand the AAS standard, which is currently trending in Industry 4.0/IIoT, its modeling capabilities, relations to other modeling approaches in the field as well as relevant trade-offs.