The increased integration of information and communication technology (ICT) into industrial production systems is creating intelligent factories whose production can flexibly adapt to short-cycle changes in customer requirements. The technical documentation of machines and systems, which is mandatory for warranty and liability reasons, can no longer do justice to this new dynamic. The high production effort, the print media form of distribution and the lack of regulations for revisions in the event of changes are the decisive factors for this. In research and industry, numerous projects, for example under the term digital twin, are developing technologies and processes for their management, control and use in numerous profitable applications. However, the full potential of the individual applications is only revealed with the comprehensive creation, use and maintenance of a central digital twin along the life cycle of the production system. A generic and adaptable structural template for digital technical system documentation is the essential prerequisite for this. However, existing approaches have not yet been able to do justice to this.

The aim of UniDoku is to develop a documentation scheme that meets the criteria of completeness, uniformity, conformity and applicability and also supports mechanisms for automating and integrating services. This is necessary in order to realize the potential for operators of machines and systems as well as synergy effects for digital twins and services, which are currently being set up redundantly. This is intended to reduce the effort required to create technical documentation, enable the creation and updating of technical documentation across company boundaries and the life cycle of CPS, and enable the creation, use and maintenance of interoperable and ongoing services.

In the project, a universal documentation scheme is developed and validated based on the existing legal requirements and current processes within the life cycle of machines and systems. To ensure adaptability for companies, regulations from industry-established data structuring standards must be prioritized and integrated. In addition, common content management systems are classified and characterized. Based on this, relevant data and relationships are modeled using practical use cases and the necessary interfaces are defined. In the further course, the documentation scheme will be technically designed and rules will be created to ensure applicability, expandability and compatibility with future developments. To ensure general applicability for industrial plants, the scheme is also validated for documentation on the institute's own industrial plants and integrated into the Internet of Things (IoT) architecture within a technology demonstrator. There is a transfer of results into science and practice as well as the initiation of standardization activities.

The research project "UniDoku" is funded under the funding number 01IF23157N by the Bundesvereinigung Logistik e.V. by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection (BMWK) based on a resolution of the German Bundestag as part of the program to promote industrial collaborative research (IGF).