Driving aspects in the developments of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are based on markets demanding a highly flexible production on the one hand and, on the other hand, by the production industry looking for new business models. This is enabled by interconnecting intelligent devices and aggregating and analyzing huge amounts of data. In the section of field devices, targeted new developments are dealing with intelligent systems which support users in each stage of the product life cycle. During installation and commissioning of a new machine, the concept of Plug-and-Produce has been created in the production industry. It is relating to the analogy of Plug-and-Play in the field of information technology which makes it possible to recognize and use devices without additional effort across several platforms. Industrial production systems differ in some aspects from Plug-and-Play computer devices that these methods are not applicable without adjustments and more advanced considerations.

Solutions to support the commissioning process are scope of this contribution and analyzed theoretically by the example of the integration of an electro-hydraulic actuator.

Two results are highlighted in this contribution. Different IIoT related concepts and technologies (i.e. OPC-UA, Cyber-physical systems, semantics) are presented and merged to realize Plug-and-Produce as an holistic business process. Furthermore, the draft combines the domain of fluid power with the abstract and generalized concepts and models and gives an understanding of future requirements for fluid power field devices in the context of IIoT.

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