Abstract
Modular plants emerged as the key solution for reducing time-to-market and increasing flexibility in the process industry by combining different modules known as Process Equipment Assemblies (PEAs). While PEA automation is standardised through the Module Type Package (MTP), comparable tools for their documentation remain absent. This work presents the Semantic PEA Datasheet (SPEAD) ontology, which represents PEA documentation as a machine-readable knowledge graph that adheres to the FAIR principles. SPEAD integrates established standards such as DEXPI and the VDI 2776 guidelines and ensures data quality through comprehensive annotations and constraint-based validation. The ontology was evaluated against twelve competency questions derived from a representative use case as well as competency questions from the literature using a continuous stirred-tank reactor PEA as well as a dosing PEA as example systems. SPEAD successfully covers operational and design parameters as well as interface definitions, and provides provenance tracking through rich metadata. Comparison with existing information models OntoCAPE and DEXPI shows that SPEAD provides enhanced provenance tracking essential for trust in engineering documentation. Future work includes enriching capability and safety descriptions and exploring integration with the Asset Administration Shell (AAS).