What a passport looks like for an industrial part

What DPP 4.0 and the Asset Administration Shell suggest for a machined part, what the Regulation requires whatever the format, and a made-up example.

By Jack Cook 25 August 2026 5 min read
DPP Industrial Data ESPR

If you make machined parts, you will hear about digital product passports a lot. Most of the early talk is about batteries and clothing. Industrial parts need a different kind of passport, and one useful place to see its likely shape is a standard written for industry.

What the IDTA proposes

The Industrial Digital Twin Association (IDTA) publishes DPP 4.0. It describes DPP 4.0 as a digital product passport for Industry 4.0, a way to document and provide product information that people and machines can both read. According to the IDTA page, the information runs across the product's lifecycle, from component manufacture through installation in a machine to ongoing operation. The passport is reached through an identification link on the product, and access is controlled by different authentication methods.

The IDTA says the technical basis is the Asset Administration Shell (AAS), which it describes as an international standard, IEC 63278. Together with the IDTA specifications, the AAS defines the software structure, interfaces and semantics needed for a standardised digital twin. The IDTA says DPP 4.0 relies on these established standards to make product data structured and machine-readable.

Why it matters to a machined-part maker

The IDTA page is more useful as a picture of shape than as a rulebook. It groups product information into areas, and most of them will look familiar to anyone who runs a shop floor:

  • Identification, which says what the product is and where it came from.
  • Technical data, such as dimensions, performance parameters, operating conditions and interfaces.
  • Documents, such as handover documentation.
  • Lifecycle, including maintenance instructions and performance information once the part is in service.
  • Carbon and environment, covering a manufacturing carbon footprint and recycling guidance.

The page says the passport is meant to be readable by companies, authorities and users. It does not set out legal obligations, which belong to the Regulation and to each delegated act.

The page also lists an end-of-life area, which it marks as coming soon. The IDTA says its specifications are continuously aligned with the evolving DPP regulatory framework, through work between the IDTA, IEC and CEN-CENELEC JTC 24.

Treat the IDTA material as one industry body's proposal. It is not an EU act. No ESPR delegated act for iron and steel is adopted yet, and the Commission's own indicative date for one is Q4 2026.

What the Regulation requires, whatever the format

Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, sets the rules a passport must meet. It does not require AAS, and it does not fix a data format. Several points apply to any passport:

  • Article 9(1): a product covered by a delegated act can only be placed on the market or put into service if a digital product passport is available. The data must be accurate, complete and up to date.
  • Article 10(1)(a): the passport is connected through a data carrier to a persistent unique product identifier.
  • Article 10(1)(d): the data must be open, interoperable and machine-readable, with no vendor lock-in.

Annex III lists the classes of data a delegated act can require. These include ecodesign information, the unique product identifier, the global trade item number, commodity codes, compliance documentation, user manuals and safety warnings, manufacturer and facility identifiers, importer details and an EU responsible operator contact. Each product group's delegated act decides which classes apply, what the data carrier looks like and where it sits on the product.

For a small shop, most of this data already exists somewhere. The material certificate arrives with the bar. The inspection report sits in a folder or a filing cabinet. The usual problem is not creating the data. It is finding it, linking it to one serial number and handing it over in a form someone else can use. A passport is largely a job of linking records you already keep.

The delegated act also decides whether a passport applies at model, batch or item level. For a machined part that is a real choice. A batch of parts and a single serialised part need different records.

An illustrative passport for a steel component

The example below is made up. The part, serial number, heat number and batch are invented, and it does not describe any customer. It shows the kind of content a passport for a steel part might hold, grouped in the way the IDTA page groups its areas.

Illustrative, not a schema

{
  "passportVersion": 3,
  "identification": {
    "serialNumber": "SN-EX-000123",
    "partName": "Drive shaft, example only",
    "drawingRevision": "C"
  },
  "material": {
    "grade": "42CrMo4",
    "heatNumber": "H-20261104-17"
  },
  "technicalData": {
    "outerDiameterMm": 40.00,
    "lengthMm": 320.0,
    "hardnessHrc": "30 to 34"
  },
  "certificates": [
    {
      "type": "Inspection certificate 3.1",
      "heatNumber": "H-20261104-17",
      "file": "cert-3-1-h20261104-17.pdf"
    }
  ],
  "qualityControl": {
    "batchId": "B-EX-2611-04",
    "operator": "Operator 07",
    "result": "PASS",
    "cmmSummary": "All six measured dimensions within tolerance"
  },
  "lifecycle": {
    "status": "in service",
    "maintenanceInstructions": "manual-ex-0042.pdf"
  }
}

Each block answers a question a buyer, auditor or service engineer might ask: which part this is, what it is made from, what it measures, which certificates cover it, how it passed inspection and what to do with it in service.

Where Traced fits

Traced is the product record side of TraceID. It holds a product with its documents, batches and QC data, and a versioned passport. See what Traced does today, and read how Traced sets up a product record and passport.

Traced stores whatever JSON you supply, versioned, with a checksum. It does not implement the Asset Administration Shell or DPP 4.0, and it does not validate against any schema. When the iron and steel delegated act fixes the content, we will adopt it.

What to do now

  • Keep each part's inspection, certificate and material records in a form you can search and produce on request.
  • Give each serialised part or batch a stable identifier.
  • Check the delegated act for your product group before you build a record around its details.

The IDTA page describes one way to structure a passport. The Regulation sets what must be true, and the delegated act for your product group sets the detail.

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