Function Based Engineering with AutomationML - Towards better standardization and seamless process integration in plant engineering

Due to shorter product lifecycles in combination with increasing product complexity, more and more enterprises are considering using the Digital Factory. One important part of the Digital Factory is the System Layout/System Design process, which includes the engineering of industrial plants – a very complex and cost-intensive domain. In this design science oriented paper, we developed a concept for standardized application interfaces in plant engineering by using AutomationML in combination with the function-based standardization framework. This concept enables companies to foster the standardization and modularization of industrial plants as well as the seamless integration of all IT systems involved in the engineering process. We validated our developed methodology and its artifacts by applying it in two real business settings, and found that overall it has a huge positive impact on process cycle times, data redundancy, data quality and extensibility.