Circular Economy | DPP | Reduction of the Carbon Footprint

In an interview with Anja Van Bocxlaer, Olaf Wilmsmeier from Wilmsmeier Solutions and Stefan Hoppe from the OPC Foundation talk about the role of the Auto-ID industry and interoperability in relation to the circular economy, the digital product passport and reducing the carbon footprint.

Circular Economy, the DPP, and Reducing the Carbon Footprint

Field Story | Interview

Wilmsmeier Solutions · October 23, 2024 · 8 min
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Efficient logistics chains and retail, including daily shopping, are no longer conceivable without Auto-ID technologies. Each of us uses Auto-ID technologies on a daily basis, often without even thinking about it. RFID and 1D or 2D identification have become an integral part of our everyday lives. The same applies to NFC-based payment processes.

But in future, AIDC (automatic identification and data capture) technologies will be used in even more diverse ways. These technologies naturally do much more than just identify. Additional information can be added to an object. The combination of RFID and sensor technology also makes it possible, for example, to directly capture the status of an object – the transport container 4711 is half full and is currently at 25°C.

What does this have to do with the European Green Deal? Well, the ideas of the Green Deal can be read directly from the European Commission. One aspect is an investment program worth hundreds of millions of euros, which includes forward-looking digitalization solutions and processes. Without progressive automation and digitalization, many of the goals of the European Green Deal cannot be achieved.

AIDC technology and the interoperability of different systems – i.e. the exchange of data and information – play a crucial role in the expansion of the circular economy, which aims to use resources and raw materials efficiently in order to significantly reduce the carbon footprint of each and every one of us.

Interview with Olaf Wilmsmeier and Stefan Hoppe

Circular Economy | DPP | Reduction of the Carbon Footprint

1. Why is Auto-ID technology crucial for the implementation of the circular economy?

Wilmsmeier: Driven by the initiatives of the European Commission, an increasing number of products are currently being provided with Auto-ID labels. Terms such as “Digital Product Passport” with content such as “Product Carbon Footprint” or, in the case of batteries, “Battery Passport” should now be familiar to everyone in the industry. Unambiguous and standardized identification of physical objects is what makes this possible. This identification must be made possible across companies and applications. Data records will be linked to the identities.

2. To what extent does the linking of AutoID and sensor technology play a role?

Wilmsmeier: Well, the identification of objects such as production goods is just the beginning. The associated digital twin, i.e. a digital image that contains all relevant data such as composition, production date and location, as well as key characteristic values from the entire life cycle, also requires sensor technology in order to be automatically supplied with the corresponding data.

Linking Auto-ID technology with sensor technology is therefore a logical further development. This has been technically feasible for many years and is increasingly being used in practice. For all those who would like to know more about this special topic, I would like to refer you to the new edition of the white paper “RFID & Sensor Technology” that was recently published by the AIM-D Association.

3. There are many different identification technologies. Are they all being taken into account?

Wilmsmeier: CEN/CENELC has been commissioned by the EU to develop standards for the implementation of the Digital Product Passport. The specification of the identifier is also being developed in JTC24. The focus is particularly on 2D codes and HF RFID (NFC), but UHF RFID is also being considered.

In my opinion, UHF RFID in particular is crucial for industrial processes, especially for the implementation of automated recycling processes. Whether 2D codes are still readable after years of product use remains to be seen and certainly depends on the product and the intended use.

NFC technology is compatible with smartphones, which is an advantage, especially if you want to provide the end consumer with product-related information. However, the range of the technology is severely limited, as is the bulk detection of several objects. It remains to be seen whether the current technical specifications and regulations will prove their worth in practice when it comes to implementing an efficient circular economy.

4. You mentioned the Digital Product Pass – for which industries or products will this be introduced?

Wilmsmeier: Well, the idea is that a very broad range of products and industries will be involved in the future. This will certainly be the case whenever a circular economy contributes to improving environmental compatibility. More specifically, the Battery Passport will be introduced in 2027. The specifications for this are already defined.

Industrial batteries will then have to be identified with at least a 2D code and linked to a digital twin – the digital product passport for batteries. The aim is to use batteries as efficiently as possible throughout their life cycle in future, including multiple use of battery cells in different applications over the course of their life cycle. Finally, there is the actual recycling process.

But batteries are just the beginning. The textile and construction industries, for example, are set to follow. It is planned that almost all industries and applications will be affected over the coming years.

We must also not forget that, at the same time, the disclosure of the CO2 footprint for individual products is becoming increasingly mandatory. This is the only way to finally determine the CO2 footprint of a finished product, e.g. a car. Many industrial companies, from connector to transponder manufacturers, are already working on making this data available.

The Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) is driving the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) as a digital twin for products. However, these are currently often still based on static data, typically data sheet information, drawings, etc.

5. For this to work across companies throughout the entire product cycle, a lot of data has to be exchanged. How can interoperability be ensured here?

Hoppe: The challenge is that “the business world” is apparently only now realizing that a wide variety of information needs to be exchanged – not only to the digital twin and, if desired, to an AAS, but also to data rooms, the metaverse and other IT applications. OPC UA is precisely the solution here if different devices or IT services from different providers want or need to exchange information.

Many people see OPC UA as a protocol for the OT world – but this is not the case. It is an interface definition that can first describe the information to be exchanged and then also provides the transport paths (such as TCP, UDP, MQTT, REST interface, file transfer) – with integrated security, of course.

2-3 years ago, we already created a demonstrator with the “Digital Twin Consortium” where an instance of an asset – i.e. a digital twin – was created in the edge or the cloud with “one click” – as an OPC UA server instance, so to speak, which is then accessible via “OPC UA over MQTT” and REST.

The demo was expanded in 2023 with the “Digital Product Passport” and the concrete implementation of the battery passport. For the battery demo, we relied on the semantics of the Berlin Battery Consortium and implemented them within just 4 hours in an executable OPC UA server instance and in cooperation with Huawei on a battery.

I want to make it clear here that OPC UA is on its way to becoming the dominant world modeling language in the field of automation. Today, over 150 assets have already been modelled with OPC UA in the so-called Companion Specifications for e.g. the robot, the tobacco machine, the Auto-ID device, the pump, the deep fryer – all descriptions are available free of charge.

It is now sensational that cloud providers such as Alibaba Cloud, AWS, Google, Huawei, Microsoft and SAP have joined forces as the “OPC Foundation Cloud Initiative” to not only ensure standardized transport of data “OPC UA over MQTT” but also to maintain the context of the information described via OPC UA in the cloud.

This means that no information from the Companion Specs is lost and, secondly, that the OPC UA modeling languages are understood by all major cloud providers. This is actually the big trend in automation – no matter what level is meant – field, edge, cloud – OPC UA plays a central role – I will also be reporting on this at the conference.

6. To what extent is this compatible with the concepts of the IDTA – which strongly characterizes the topic of digital twins?

Hoppe: First of all, I would like to point out that there is no clear definition of a digital twin worldwide, e.g. we have implemented the digital twins I have just described as “one click” as open source with the Digital Twin Consortium. There are certainly many more definitions of the digital twin and as things stand today, none of them can exchange information with the others. Unfortunately, in earlier times (before the IDTA was founded), the AAS defined its own metamodeling language that is incompatible with OPC UA and is less powerful.

We already showed two years ago that the more powerful OPC UA technology makes it very easy to load the AAS submodels into OPC UA Server – regardless of whether it is then executable in the PLC, the edge or in the cloud – with all interfaces including file transfer and already tested security. It took 4 days to write a converter from AAS submodels to UA Companion Specs, we validated this on the 3 genuinely relevant submodels as well as the carbon footprint.

I don’t want to deny the technical conflict between OPCF and IDTA here – but in my role as President, I can’t impose any artificial restrictions on applications in a free market “you can’t implement AAS with OPC UA”. The two boards of IDTA and OPCF have recognized the conflict, have started an exchange, and I firmly believe that we can come to a solution here and announce a deeper cooperation. I quote Oskar Wilde here: “All will be well in the end – and if it is not yet well, then it is not the end.”

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