Universal Factory Data Model (UFDM)
The Universal Factory Data Model (UFDM) has been characterized as "the single source of truth" by users. Developed in 1998, this powerful data model provides true manufacturing transparency to shop floor information. It is designed to enrich plant floor statistics by adding context. This is achieved by combining all forms of data while maintaining the relationships between data collected from the automation layer, plant floor devices and other electronic sources in addition to manually captured data or data received from external systems.
After years of delivering custom solutions, the architects of the UFDM began seeing a trend in how data was collected. Using this insight they designed a solution that allowed manufacturing companies to categorize and collect data in a standard format regardless of the type of plant, its idiosyncrasies, production equipment, data formats or report requirements and analysis. Over the last 9 years, this design has been standardized and refined to become the UFDM.
The UFDM simplifies and speeds the configuration of data collection and reduces Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) programming to give context to data. It is only through context that users can report on and analyze data to find the underlying patterns and discover not only what happened or is happening but why. Without context, data can be random bits that may or may not be related and it then becomes the user’s task to provide the relationship or context.
The UFDM is in fact the core enabler of the entire manufacturing intelligence platform.
Features:
- Dynamic, user configurable viewing and analysis: The UFDM delivers the data to a set of user configurable analytical tools. Because the format of the data is standardized, the visualization of information is not limited to specific hard-coded data schemes.
- True scalability: The UFDM removes the existing implementation and maintenance issues caused by different and multiple code bases, data models, databases and interfaces that are typical of other MI solutions.
- Data correlation between different data of different formats: The UFDM allows out-of-the-box analysis of data – regardless of its format – allowing users to drop and drag data against any time frame. Users are not at the mercy of hard-coded reports nor do they have to wait for IT to create the reports and analysis they need.
- Data collection, implementation and maintenance configuration: The UFDM removes any need for a user to understand the data structures or how the data is stored. It also removes the need for time-consuming database programming and data model definition workshops.
- Uninterrupted data collection: The UFDM supports uninterrupted data collection even when the data model is being modified. There is no need to stop the data collection process when modifying the UFDM, unlike other approaches that require stopping data collection, which will gravely affect the willingness of managers to trust decisions on incomplete information.
Because of the UFDM, organizations can implement the Activplant Performance Management System in weeks rather than the typical months or years. Users can quickly configure the Activplant solution to see data in multiple dimensions all within a proper context. With the UFDM, users can quickly add assets to access data from plant floor machines, configure a new collection method, add new calculations, and seamlessly scale across multiple plants without the need for a single line of code to be modified.
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