J U L Y 2 0 2 0 • M A T E R I A L S E V A L U A T I O N 835 ME TECHNICAL PAPER w A B S T R A C T Up until recently, the industrial revolution was divided into three phases: (1) simple mechaniza- tion (2) mass production and (3) automation. Similarly, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) can be divided into three phases: (1) tools, such as lenses, sharpened the human senses (2) the conversion of waves made the invisible visible by offering a “look” inside components and (3) automation, digitization, and reconstruction enhanced the accuracy, speed, and ease of infor- mation sharing. During industrial development, although NDE has been decisively responsible for the quality of the manufactured goods and safety of operations, it has carried perceptions not commensurate with the value realized. Currently, industry leaders have been talking about a fourth revolution: the informatization, digitization, and networking of industrial production and the concurrent use of emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and 5G networks. For NDE, this fourth revolution offers an unprecedented opportunity to address technical challenges and negative perceptions at the same time, leading to an enhanced appreciation of this significant discipline. The paper begins with a survey of professionals in the field to identify the perceptions surrounding NDE and moves on to demonstrate the value of integrating Industry 4.0 with NDE in the form of NDE 4.0 driven by connec- tivity and data mining. Building on that, this paper next presents the necessary basics and concepts, like semantic interoperability and the Industrial Internet of Things. Moreover, the key interfaces and data formats, like OPC UA and DIOCONDE, are discussed, and the International Data Spaces Association (IDSA), which goes one step further by ensuring data sovereignty, enabling data markets, and connecting the world, is introduced. The emerging reality of NDE 4.0 is that robust digital interfaces help create value, and statistical approaches combined with digital twins and threads help extract that value. KEYWORDS: NDE 4.0, Industry 4.0, perception, AAS, digital twin, IIoT, OPC UA, DICOM, DICONDE, semantic interoperability Introduction The term Industry 4.0 was created in 2011 and has led to an almost unmanageable number of activities over the past eight years (Kagermann et al. 2011). Thousands of people are working to make the dream of a networked industry come true, thanks to data transparency. As detailed later, data trans- parency is enabled by open standardized interfaces using semantic interoperability that allows easy, unhindered machine-readable data exchange between all machines, systems, and assets in industrial production and service. This enables, for example, users to reuse the data, to perform trend analyses, and to enable the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Therefore, data transparency is one of the cornerstones of Industry 4.0, both for data formats and for interfaces. As an integral part of industrial production and operation, nondestructive evaluation (NDE) provides the quality assur- ance means required by industry. With the foundation of the German Society for NDE (DGZfP) committee “ZfP 4.0” in 2017, the American Society for Nondestructive Testing (ASNT) committee “NDE 4.0” in 2019, and the International NDE Perception and Emerging Reality: NDE 4.0 Value Extraction by Johannes Vrana* Materials Evaluation 78 (7): 835–851 https://doi.org/10.32548/2020.me-04131 ©2020 American Society for Nondestructive Testing * Vrana GmbH, Rimsting, Germany contact@vrana.net DGZfP Subcommittee Interfaces and Documentation for NDE 4.0, Berlin, Germany

836 M A T E R I A L S E V A L U A T I O N • J U L Y 2 0 2 0 ME TECHNICAL PAPER w nde 4.0: perception and reality Committee for NDT (ICNDT) Specialist International Group “NDE 4.0” in 2019, the NDE industry reacted to developments in connection with Industry 4.0. In addition, the DGZfP subcommittee “Interfaces and Documentation for NDE 4.0” faces the challenge of defining the interfaces between NDE and industry in such a way that customers can process and interpret NDE results directly in their world (Vrana 2019b). The NDE sector will not succeed in giving the industry new interfaces. It is more reasonable to use Industry 4.0 interface developments and participate in the design in order to shape them for NDE requirements. The Industrial Revolutions The terms Industry 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and digital factory are now ubiquitous, but what do they mean? Industry 4.0 is the fourth industrial revolution, the IIoT is one of the technologies that enables the connections necessary for the fourth revolution, and the digital or smart factory is the goal. The term “4.0” refers to the version numbering that is commonly used for software. The following is a brief overview of the four industrial revolutions (Table 1). Watch the video Welcome to the World of NDE 4.0 TABLE 1 The four industrial revolutions Industrial revolutions Revolutionary innovations Key enablers Technological basis Leading country © Johann Jaritz Handcrafting n/a Fire, tools Muscle power n/a © Wassily Frese First industrial revolution Simple mechanization Steam engine, renewable energies Coal, iron England Second industrial revolution New industries, mass production Chemical and physical findings, production line Electricity Germany Third industrial revolution Computers and automation Digital technology, robots, drones Microelectronics United States © Franziska Vrana Industry 4.0 Networking, data markets Informatization, digitalization, networks, interfaces, digital communication, artificial intelligence, machine learning, 5G, quantum technologies Software, computer science ?