Cooperation and collaboration of technical systems in different application contexts is one of the main targets of the vision of “Industrie 4.0” (I40). In order to bring this vision to industrial practice, it is necessary to define a semantic basis for information exchange between systems. This paper provides the results of a project that focused on semantic modeling based on standards relevant in the I40 context. Particularly, a meta model for modeling mechatronic systems as well as a meta model for modeling the systems characteristics is provided. The combination of the two developed meta models can be used for implementation in semantic technologies, i.e. Web Ontology Language, or AutomationML. Furthermore, a use-case is introduced that shows an implementation of the meta models in AutomationML with the use of ecl@ss properties in the engineering and operation of a discrete manufacturing system.