A Reference Model for Common Understanding of Capabilities and Skills in Manufacturing

In manufacturing, many use cases of Industry 4.0 require vendor-neutral and machine-readable information models to describe, implement and execute resource functions. Such models have been researched under the terms capabilities and skills. Standardization of such models is required, but currently not available. This paper presents a reference model developed jointly by members of various organizations in a working group of the Plattform Industrie 4.0. This model covers definitions of most important aspects of capabilities and skills. It can be seen as a basis for further standardization efforts.