  In this paper we present an experience report for the RMQFMU, a plug and play
tool, that enables feeding data to/from an FMI2-based co-simulation environment
based on the AMQP protocol. Bridging the co-simulation to an external
environment allows on one side to feed historical data to the co-simulation,
serving different purposes, such as visualisation and/or data analysis. On the
other side, such a tool facilitates the realisation of the digital twin concept
by coupling co-simulation and hardware/robots close to real-time. In the paper
we present limitations of the initial version of the RMQFMU with respect to the
capability of bridging co-simulation with the real world. To provide the
desired functionality of the tool, we present in a step-by-step fashion how
these limitations, and subsequent limitations, are alleviated. We perform
various experiments in order to give reason to the modifications carried out.
Finally, we report on two case-studies where we have adopted the RMQFMU, and
provide guidelines meant to aid practitioners in its use.
