In the context of Industrie 4.0 for some time now, the recognition is aware that – in addition to a technologically driven bottom-up approach – one must complement the topic of digitization in manufacturing industries also by a top-down driven approach. In such a top-down approach the starting point are possible future business scenarios, from which more technically use case descriptions are derived. These use cases are the basis to derive new products, solutions, and services well as standardization requirements.

In the context of the so-called “smart grids”, this approach has already been used, where the use cases have been described based on the template proposed by IEC 62559-2. However, the topic “smart grid” is much more focused with respect to possible business scenarios than the digitization of manufacturing industries. Therefore, a direct application of this template for the description of use cases seems not to be purposeful, because it requires upfront a too high depth of detail.

On the other hand, it is recognized that the application scenarios of Plattform Industrie 4.0, provide a representative overview of the new business opportunities in the context of the digitization in manufacturing industries. Therefore, the need for action from a methodological point of view is less at the level of the business scenarios, but to now concretize these business scenarios from a technical user’s point of view.

It was, therefore, our goal to leave the level of business scenarios and to describe on a technical level in the form of use cases the interplay of actors with a technical system. We have set the scope of our consideration by a concrete application scenario of Plattform Industrie 4.0 – in particular the application scenario Value-Based Service. We are not concerned with the description of a concrete manifestation in the form of a project, but with a description of general principles and concepts.

This article was originally published by Plattform Industrie 4.0 Germany.