Model-driven Engineering of flexible Production Systems with the RAMI Toolbox

Tradition manufacturing is undergoing a significant change, mainly promoted by emerging technologies like Cyber-physical Systems (CPS) or the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), leading to new automated production. The rising number of dynamically interconnected elements leads to an increasing complexity in such systems, which accompanies new challenges during systems engineering and thus leads to reaching the limits of contemporary methods. While the community has recognized this, new approaches recently arose to find solutions for particular parts of this problem. However, as the need for a holistic approach emerges, the Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0) has been standardized as a promising framework. While this domain-specific architecture framework is missing specifications to address all aspects of such critical infrastructure, this paper thus proposes a new modeling methodology promoting model-driven engineering (MDE) of current or future production systems based on the peculiarities of RAMI 4.0. To enable mutual architecture development across the entire system hierarchy and all stakeholders, the aspects of model-based systems engineering (MBSE) are considered. The proposed step-by-step guideline is thereby made applicable by a modeling framework called RAMI Toolbox that ensures the engineering of both greenfield and brownfield systems. Finally, the approach, including all artifacts, is evaluated based on a real-world case study proposed by Siemens.