To consider the movement of materials handling equipment and construction machines in discrete element simulations the interaction between bulk solids and multibody systems needs to be known. For this purpose, the DEM code LIGGGHTS (R) has been coupled to a universal, standardized interface for model exchange with market-leading multibody software. In this paper the implementation of the interface is explained. Several verification experiments have been performed to prove the correctness of the simulation results. An application example is given to show the advantages of a coupled Simulation. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.