User Journey
The diagram below displays the most common user journey of the Manufacturing Connect Edge experience. This journey can include multiple paths and you are welcome to combine these as you see fit.
1. Review the available options for Installation and Deployments to begin your journey.
2. Instance Setup. See Configure Network Interfaces and Configure DNS/NTP Servers.
3a. Connect a Device in DeviceHub: You start by connecting devices to Manufacturing Connect Edge. A typical example of a device would be a PLC.
3b. Add Tags: Add tags to the connected device to subscribe to that device’s data by register. For example, you may tag the PLC registers that contain the current temperature and vibration values. The data is collected with the frequency you define, automatically normalized, and published to the internal Message Broker. This data becomes available to both internal and external entities.
4. Process, visualize, and analyze the polled and normalized data:
- Create and Manage Data Flows: Flows allow you to view device data and configure the output so you can better visualize how the device is operating. For example, you can subscribe to a tag that provides temperature values, average the temperature values per hour, and then publish the average values to the Message Broker. You can then add a function that monitors the published average temperatures and raises an alarm if the value exceeds a predefined threshold. See Flows Manager to learn more.
- Create and Manage Analytics Flows & Models: AnalyticsAnalytics are used to create flows. You can add input, function, and output instances, and then connect them. The flows can use KPIs or Machine Learning models. For example, you can apply out-of-the-box Compliance and Loss or Production Cycle KPIs to the data obtained from the Message Broker. You can then publish the results to another tag at the Message Broker. Alternatively, you can submit the data to a pre-trained TensorFlow machine learning model and use the resulting predictions for decision making,
- Visualize and Analyze Data with Marketplace Applications: Applications provides a default set of applications in a Public Marketplace. You can add your own Docker container-based applications in a Private Repository.
- Integrate Connector to Third-Party Systems: You can configure connectors to connect to cloud services. This allows you to publish data from an edge device directly to a cloud service provider or database. See Integration to learn more.
- Add an OPC UA Hierarchy: The OPC UA protocol provides a publish-subscribe client server technology for reliable data transmission. You can add your edge devices and tags in a hierarchy. See OPC UA Server to learn more.
- Customize Systems: Customize settings such as security, network, user, and other settings to protect the integrity of your edge instance.