A pilot study of industry 4.0 asset interoperability challenges in an industry 4.0 laboratory

System integration is a crucial concept in the Industry 4.0 (I4.0) vision, where information processes supporting flexible production are digital. System integration paves the way for leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things, big data analysis, simulation, cloud computing, and augmented reality. The first step towards system integration is to examine the assets (machine software) ability to exchange information in an I4.0 setting. This paper aims to analyze challenges for asset interoperability by conducting asset integration in the University I4.0 laboratory (I4.0 lab). Conducting asset integration has been a part of building an Information Backbone (IB) as a minimum viable product in the I4.0 lab. An IB is a software infrastructure that involves integrating into various assets, e.g., warehouse, transport, and robotic systems, and providing communication among them. The pilot study reveals that the maturity of assets interoperability readiness are at very different levels, e.g. missing external interfaces, poor documentation, and varying technologies. These challenges need to be further addressed to collect architectural requirements for system integration, and establish a common vocabulary and understanding of I4.0 concepts.