Application Recommendation: Material Handling
How material moves through a plant, from a source, along tracks, through the conveyors and stations that carry it, to a sink, is modelled in AutomationML so that a material flow line can be exchanged between planning tools as one connected model.
The document
| Type | Application Recommendation (AR), draft |
| Identifier | AR Material Handling, V 0.0.1 |
| Version | 0.0.1 |
| State | June 2026 |
| Publisher | AutomationML e.V., Magdeburg, Germany |
| Language | English |
| Extent | 84 pages (draft; extent may still change) |
| Complements | IEC 62714, Engineering data exchange format for use in industrial automation systems engineering |
| Access | Not yet published. See the note above. |
Read it, or try it
The class tables aren’t public yet, so there’s nothing to download. There is something to click through: a single interactive page, built directly from this draft, that assembles a material flow line component by component.
Abstract
Material moves through a plant along paths that get planned, redesigned, and re-quoted by different tools and different people: layout planners, conveyor vendors, controls engineers. Today that information mostly travels as drawings and spreadsheets, redrawn at every handoff.
This Application Recommendation proposes a modelling method for material handling data by means of the engineering data format AutomationML. It describes material flow in terms of sources and sinks, the tracks that connect them, and the transport systems and stations, conveyors, lifting stations, switches, turners, and their relatives, that do the moving. Component connectors tie handling components together into a single flow; instances take a role from the class libraries the recommendation defines, and can then be exchanged, assembled, or analysed like any other AutomationML model.
Keywords: AutomationML, IEC 62714, CAEX, material handling, material flow, conveyor, transport system, track model, component connector
Scope
This draft covers material flow at the level of a single connected line: how goods move from a source, along tracks and through stations and transport systems, to a sink. Layout planning, meaning the physical arrangement and geometry of a plant, is a separate topic, handled in a different document, AR Layout Planning; this document focuses on material flow itself.
Sensors, actuators, and drive characteristics for material handling components are named as in scope for the recommendation, but are not yet modelled in this draft: the corresponding class library is a placeholder for now (see „What the recommendation defines,“ below).
What this draft is trying to do
Sources, tracks, and stations chained together into a single line that a receiving tool can read as one connected model, the way the document’s worked figures do.
Conveyors, lifting stations, switches, turners, and their relatives named once, in one class library, instead of redrawn per tool or per vendor.
Scoped to material flow itself. Layout and the sensor/actuator detail behind each station are separate work, named in the draft but not yet modelled.
What the recommendation defines
Five class libraries in this draft, four with real content and one still a placeholder.
| Base RoleClassLib | The core model: Source, Sink, and the geometry/kinematic model classes it builds on. |
| TrackModel RoleClassLib | TrackModel and its five track types, from LinearTrack to FreeformTrack. |
| TransportType RoleClassLib | Thirteen station and mechanism types: Switch, LiftingStation, Turner, CornerTransferUnit, and their relatives. |
| TransportSystem RoleClassLib | Seventeen conveyor and vehicle types: AGV, belt, chain, roll, plate, and skid conveyors, power-and-free, pusher platforms, and more. |
| InterfaceClassLib & AttributeTypeLib | The connectors that link handling components together, and around three dozen shared attributes, dimensions, timing, kinematics. |
| SensorActorDrive RoleClassLib | Placeholder. Six classes reserved for sensors, actuators, and drives; none defined yet in this draft. |
This draft’s figures and its own class tables don’t always agree on library naming yet. The interactive page below follows the class tables, since that is where each class’s own citable path lives.
The vocabulary in one paragraph
Two endpoints, Source and Sink, connected by TrackModel containers holding one or more Track segments (linear, sector, curved, or freeform). Between them, thirteen TransportType stations and mechanisms and seventeen TransportSystem conveyors and vehicles do the actual moving, each described by attributes such as maximumLoad, cycleTime, and the orientation of a unit at a source. Component connectors tie it all into a single flow.
Read it, or try it
One browser page, built directly on this draft’s own class tables. Nothing to install. What you assemble can be exported as illustrative AutomationML text, but the draft has no published class library yet, so treat that export as a preview of the shape, not a conformant file. This is a first, single-page start, one linear chain from source to sink; branching layouts, using the switches and lifting stations the draft already describes, are a natural next step if this lands well with the group.
Click a chain together, source to sink, and watch the AutomationML model write itself beside it, in plain English and as an instance tree.
Contents of the document
| 1 | Introduction. Basics, scope, dictionary. |
| 2 | Material flow and handling. Core concepts behind the model. |
| 3 | Modelling approach. Contents of the data exchange, component connectors, and the class descriptions, organised by group: base, track model, transport type, transport system. |
| 4 | Modelling of the data with AutomationML. Every role, interface, and attribute class, with its attributes and library path: 4.1 RoleClassLibrary, 4.2 InterfaceClassLibrary, 4.3 AttributeTypeLibrary. |
Referenced and related documents
This draft names one related document directly: AR Layout Planning, which covers the physical arrangement of a plant as a separate topic from the material flow this document describes. Other AutomationML specifications are listed on the main Specifications page.
All AutomationML specifications →
How to cite
AutomationML e.V.: Application Recommendation: Material Handling. AR Material Handling, Version 0.0.1 (working draft), June 2026. AutomationML e.V., Magdeburg, Germany. https://www.automationml.org/about-automationml/specifications/ar-material-handling/
BibTeX
@techreport{automationml2026materialhandling,
author = {{AutomationML e.V.}},
title = {Application Recommendation: Material Handling},
type = {Application Recommendation, working draft},
number = {AR Material Handling, Version 0.0.1},
institution = {AutomationML e.V.},
address = {Magdeburg, Germany},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
note = {Working draft, not yet formally published},
url = {https://www.automationml.org/about-automationml/specifications/ar-material-handling/}
}
This page is the citable landing page for this working draft, version 0.0.1. It will be replaced or superseded once the recommendation is formally published; until then, this is the URL to cite and the version the working group is reviewing.