  In the context of the digital transformation of the industry, whole value
chains get connected across various application domains; as long as economic,
ecologic, or social benefits arise to do so. Under the umbrella of the
Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), traditional Operational Technology (OT)
approaches are replaced or at least augmented by Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) systems to facilitate this development. To meet industrial
requirements, for example, related to privacy, determinism, latency, or
autonomy, established Cloud Computing mechanisms are being moved closer to data
sources and actuators. Depending on the context, this distributed Cloud
Computing paradigm is named Edge Computing or Fog Computing and various
challenges have been subject to several publications. However, a proper
reference model that describes the multi-dimensional problem space which is
being spanned by this paradigm, seems still to be undefined. Such a model
should provide orientation, put work in relation and support the identification
of current and future research issues. This paper aims to fill this gap with a
focus on industrial automation and follows analog models that have been
developed for specific domains such as the Smart Grid Architecture Model (SGAM)
and the Reference Architecture Model Industrie 4.0 (RAMI4.0). The proposed
Reference Architecture Model Edge Computing (RAMEC) identifies 210 views on the
Edge Computing paradigm in the manufacturing domain. Future iterations of this
model might be used for the classification of relevant research,
standardization, and development activities.
