As we progress toward the realization of the Industry 4.0 paradigm, the manufacturing industry faces increasingly challenging scenarios regarding the integration of various new heterogeneous elements comprised in the new intelligent solutions and the preexisting legacy systems that are already in place.

For this reason, the aspect of interoperability arises as one of the focus points taken into account during the design of the innovative system-of-systems solutions, often requiring harmonized interfaces to enable the seamless integration of such components. This can be further assisted by the adoption of a common format for data representation and respective standard interfaces for data exchange, which when combined can act as the main drivers to enable components to expose their functionality and achieve interoperability.

Being aligned with PERFoRM's Industry 4.0 vision, this chapters entails the design, implementation, and testing of a common data model and respective standard interfaces, supported by the results of previous successful European projects, which can be used as some of the core elements to enable the seamless integration and interconnectivity between both intelligent and legacy systems, taking into account the specific needs of four different use cases representing varied European industry sectors.