National foreword

This British Standard is the UK implementation of EN IEC 63278‑4:2026. It is identical to IEC 63278‑4:2026.

The UK participation in its preparation was entrusted to Technical Committee GEL/65, Measurement and control.

A list of organizations represented on this committee can be obtained on request to its committee manager.

Contractual and legal considerations

This publication has been prepared in good faith, however no representation, warranty, assurance or undertaking (express or implied) is or will be made, and no responsibility or liability is or will be accepted by BSI in relation to the adequacy, accuracy, completeness or reasonableness of this publication. All and any such responsibility and liability is expressly disclaimed to the full extent permitted by the law.

This publication is provided as is, and is to be used at the recipient’s own risk.

The recipient is advised to consider seeking professional guidance with respect to its use of this publication.

This publication is not intended to constitute a contract. Users are responsible for its correct application.

Compliance with a British Standard cannot confer immunity from legal obligations.

This British Standard was published under the authority of the Standards Policy and Strategy Committee on 30 November 2026.

This European Standard was approved by CENELEC on 22 October 2026. CENELEC members are bound to comply with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations which stipulate the conditions for giving this European Standard the status of a national standard without any alteration.

Up-to-date lists and bibliographical references concerning such national standards may be obtained on application to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre or to any CENELEC member.

This European Standard exists in three official versions (English, French, German). A version in any other language made by translation under the responsibility of a CENELEC member into its own language and notified to the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre has the same status as the official versions.

CENELEC members are the national electrotechnical committees of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of North Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye and United Kingdom.

European foreword

The text of document 65/1206/FDIS, future edition 1 of IEC 63278‑4, prepared by TC 65 "Industrial-process measurement, control and automation" was submitted to the IEC-CENELEC parallel vote and approved by CENELEC as EN IEC 63278‑4:2026.

The following dates are fixed:

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. CENELEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Any feedback and questions on this document should be directed to the users’ national committee. A complete listing of these bodies can be found on the CENELEC website.

Endorsement notice

The text of the International Standard IEC 63278‑4:2026 was approved by CENELEC as a European Standard without any modification.

In the official version, for Bibliography, the following notes have to be added for the standard indicated:

FOREWORD

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is a worldwide organization for standardization comprising all national electrotechnical committees (IEC National Committees). The object of IEC is to promote international co-operation on all questions concerning standardization in the electrical and electronic fields. To this end and in addition to other activities, IEC publishes International Standards, Technical Specifications, Technical Reports, Publicly Available Specifications (PAS) and Guides (hereafter referred to as "IEC Publication(s)"). Their preparation is entrusted to technical committees; any IEC National Committee interested in the subject dealt with may participate in this preparatory work. International, governmental and non-governmental organizations liaising with the IEC also participate in this preparation. IEC collaborates closely with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in accordance with conditions determined by agreement between the two organizations.
The formal decisions or agreements of IEC on technical matters express, as nearly as possible, an international consensus of opinion on the relevant subjects since each technical committee has representation from all interested IEC National Committees.
IEC Publications have the form of recommendations for international use and are accepted by IEC National Committees in that sense. While all reasonable efforts are made to ensure that the technical content of IEC Publications is accurate, IEC cannot be held responsible for the way in which they are used or for any misinterpretation by any end user.
In order to promote international uniformity, IEC National Committees undertake to apply IEC Publications transparently to the maximum extent possible in their national and regional publications. Any divergence between any IEC Publication and the corresponding national or regional publication shall be clearly indicated in the latter.
IEC itself does not provide any attestation of conformity. Independent certification bodies provide conformity assessment services and, in some areas, access to IEC marks of conformity. IEC is not responsible for any services carried out by independent certification bodies.
All users should ensure that they have the latest edition of this publication.
No liability shall attach to IEC or its directors, employees, servants or agents including individual experts and members of its technical committees and IEC National Committees for any personal injury, property damage or other damage of any nature whatsoever, whether direct or indirect, or for costs (including legal fees) and expenses arising out of the publication, use of, or reliance upon, this IEC Publication or any other IEC Publications.
Attention is drawn to the Normative references cited in this publication. Use of the referenced publications is indispensable for the correct application of this publication.
IEC draws attention to the possibility that the implementation of this document may involve the use of (a) patent(s). IEC takes no position concerning the evidence, validity or applicability of any claimed patent rights in respect thereof. As of the date of publication of this document, IEC had not received notice of (a) patent(s), which may be required to implement this document. However, implementers are cautioned that this may not represent the latest information, which may be obtained from the patent database available at https://patents.iec.ch. IEC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

IEC 63278-4 has been prepared by IEC technical committee 65: Industrial-process measurement, control and automation. It is an International Standard.

The text of this International Standard is based on the following documents:

Full information on the voting for its approval can be found in the report on voting indicated in the above table.

The language used for the development of this International Standard is English.

This document was drafted in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, and developed in accordance with ISO/IEC Directives, Part 1 and ISO/IEC Directives, IEC Supplement, available at www.iec.ch/members_experts/refdocs. The main document types developed by IEC are described in greater detail at www.iec.ch/publications.

A list of all parts in the IEC 63278 series, published under the general title Asset Administration Shell for industrial applications, can be found on the IEC website.

The committee has decided that the contents of this document will remain unchanged until the stability date indicated on the IEC website under webstore.iec.ch in the data related to the specific document. At this date, the document will be

reconfirmed,
withdrawn, or
revised.

INTRODUCTION

0.1 General

The Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is seen as one interoperable manifestation of a digital twin in manufacturing industries. IEC 63278‑1 describes the conceptual framework for the AAS, the structure of the AAS and requirements associated with the AAS and related entities.

This document complements IEC 63278‑1 by describing in a systematic way applications of the AAS.

0.2 Context of this document

The current work foresees parts covering the following topics:

Asset Administration Shell structure (IEC 63278‑1);
Information meta model (IEC 63278‑21[1]2);
Security provisions for Asset Administration Shells (IEC 63278‑33[2]);
Applications of AAS (this document);
Interfaces (IEC 63278‑54[3]).

Figure 1 illustrates the relationships between the documents currently being worked on.

IEC 63278‑1 and IEC 63278‑4 both address a concept view, whereas IEC 63278‑2, IEC 63278‑3, and IEC 63278‑5 address a design view. An implementation is distinguished from the concept and design. Currently the implementation view is not addressed by the IEC 63278 series.

In this document, an application perspective is always taken. This document considers selected Smart Manufacturing use cases, see [4], and refines aspects of these use cases, but other input was also considered. However, the terms and concepts introduced in IEC 63278‑1 are used. IEC 63278‑4 does not introduce concepts which are not considered in IEC 63278‑1.

NOTE IEC 63278‑2 introduces concepts which are not introduced in IEC 63278‑1 (e.g., qualifier, semanticID of Submodels), but such concepts are not in the scope of IEC 63278‑4.

Nevertheless, IEC 63278‑4 details and explains requirements, recommendations, and permissions that are not described precisely enough in IEC 63278‑1. These requirements, recommendations, and permissions are not regarding the AAS itself, but the application of the AAS in the context of the related entities.

0.3 Structure of this document

Clause 4 of this document introduces additional actors in form of humans or organizations and describes how these actors interact with the AAS and the related entities by stating requirements, recommendations, and permissions. Clause 4 also describes examples about possible modelling and procedures using the AAS following the statements. This completes IEC 63278‑1 regarding an application of the AAS. The claim is that these descriptions are complete regarding the level of detail considered.

Clause 5 describes - in addition to Clause 4 - selected examples about possible modelling and procedures using the AAS. It is the responsibility of a human or organization to determine how to apply the concepts provided by the AAS regarding their own objectives. In this respect, these examples neither claim to be complete nor to provide guidance about good practices. Clause 5 does not state any requirement.

0.4 Intended audience and purpose of the document

This document addresses humans or organizations that want to use the concepts provided by the AAS. This concerns how the AAS can be used in the context of the related entities and how to represent assets using the AAS.

Additionally, this document provides a framework to better understand the context of the AAS and thus lays a basis for further parts of the IEC 63278 series. This also concerns software developers, who want to provide software that supports AASs, be it to provide AASs or to use AASs.

1 Scope

The Asset Administration Shell is a standardized digital representation of an asset. The Asset Administration Shell gives uniform access to information of an asset and services of or related to an asset.

The purpose of the Asset Administration Shell is to enable two or more software applications to exchange information and to mutually use the information that has been exchanged in a trusted and secure manner.

This document assumes an application perspective of the Asset Administration Shell to develop a common understanding on how to use an Asset Administration Shell.

This document defines how the Asset Administration Shell can be used in the context of the related entities and how to represent assets using the Asset Administration Shell.

Due to the more detailed description compared to IEC 63278‑1, additional requirements, recommendations, and permissions for the AAS are stated towards application of the AAS in selected scenarios.

2 Normative references

3 Terms, definitions, abbreviated terms, and conventions

3.1 Terms and definitions

3.2 Abbreviated terms

3.3 Conventions

4 Application of the Asset Administration Shell

4.1 General

4.2 Governance principles

4.3 Application of assets and Asset Administration Shells

4.4 Application of AAS user applications

4.5 Application of asset integration, asset services, and asset related services

4.6 Application of concept repositories, Submodel templates and Submodels

4.7 Data exposure and accountability

5 Further examples for Asset Administration Shells

5.1 Examples for product types and product instances

5.2 Example conceptual networks

5.3 Example virtual commissioning of a conveyor

5.4 Example information exchange within a boiler system

5.5 Example CFP calculation

5.6 Example services

5.7 Example addressing type-instance aspects

Bibliography