A Methodology for classifying Data relevance to utilize external Data Sources in the Digital Twin

The Digital Twin is one of the future key technologies of digitization and Industry 4.0. Through coupling the vast amount of available static and dynamic data about a physical asset with intelligent software functions, it aims for simplifying the increasingly complex functions and interconnections of automation systems. This makes it necessary to provide the Digital Twin with updated and high-quality data about the physical asset. However, little attention is paid to data not generated by the asset itself but from external data sources. This is partly due to a lack of methodologies for identifying and evaluating external data relevant for a specific Digital Twin. The contribution of this work is a categorization of data for the Digital Twin and a methodology to support the identification of data from outside of the physical asset. The work-in-progress refers to the context of industrial automation and is to be validated in the future in laboratories containing discrete manufacturing facilities at Pforzheim University and the University of Stuttgart.