UNS Connectivity#

Overview#

The Unified Namespace (UNS) Connectivity feature enables the Critical Manufacturing MES to publish real-time Canonical Data Model (CDM) events to an MQTT broker, making shop-floor data instantly available to external systems, dashboards, and analytics platforms.

UNS Connectivity builds on two core Data Platform capabilities:

• Light CDM Events — a simplified variant of CDM events optimized for real-time performance, containing essential event properties without the overhead of the full event schema.
• UNS Connector — a dedicated container that publishes Light CDM events to an MQTT broker using the Publish/Subscribe pattern.

graph LR
    A[MES Operations] --> B[HouseKeeper CDM Builder Light]
    B --> C[Kafka]
    C --> D[UNS Connector]
    D --> E[MQTT Broker]
    E --> F[External Consumers]

classDef mermaid_entity color:#000, fill:#FB9F53, stroke:#FB9F53, stroke-width:0px, font-size:100%;
classDef mermaid_businessdata color:#000, fill:#65CDE8, stroke:#65CDE8, stroke-width:0px, font-size:100%;
classDef mermaid_nonbusinessdata color:#000, fill:#B7DEE8, stroke:#B7DEE8, stroke-width:0px, font-size:100%;
class A mermaid_entity
class B,C,D mermaid_businessdata
class E,F mermaid_nonbusinessdata

How It Works#

Event Generation#

When manufacturing activities occur in the MES — such as a resource state change, a material operation, or a data collection event — the HouseKeeper CDM Builder Light service generates Light CDM events. These events are:

• Standardized — structured according to the ISA-95 hierarchy (Enterprise, Site, Area, Resource).
• Self-contained — each event carries its full context, including current and previous states.
• Lightweight — includes only essential properties for real-time efficiency.

Event Publishing#

The UNS Export Integration business scenario creates an automation controller that:

1. Subscribes to configured Light CDM event types via IoT Event Definition bindings.
2. Transforms each event into an MQTT-compatible message with a hierarchical topic based on the ISA-95 manufacturing hierarchy.
3. Publishes the message to the configured MQTT broker.

The resulting MQTT topic follows this pattern:

Enterprise/Site/Area/Resource/EventType

For example: DefaultEnterprise/DefaultSite/Cookie-Manufacturing/Baker-01/ResourceStateChange

Light CDM Events#

Light CDM Events are specially designed for real-time scenarios. Not all CDM Event Definitions support the light variant. The following events have light variants enabled out of the box:

• Material Operations
• Resource State Change
• Post Data Collection

Viewing Available Light Events#

To see which events support light variants in your environment:

1. Navigate to Data Platform > IoT Event Definition.
2. Check the Has Light Variant column.

Only events with this property enabled can be used with the UNS Export Integration.

Light Event Properties#

The properties included in each light variant are documented in the MES Canonical Event Definition ⧉. Light events balance efficiency with completeness, including:

• Header — correlation ID, timestamps, CDM version.
• Hierarchy — Enterprise, Site, Facility, and Area context.
• Entity data — core properties of the affected entity (for example, Resource state, Material operation details).
• Previous state — for state-change events, the prior entity state.

Enriching Light Events#

If you need additional properties beyond the default set:

1. Navigate to Administration > Entity Type.
2. Select the relevant entity type.
3. In the Properties tab, select Manage.
4. Enable the Is To Enrich CDM toggle for the desired properties.
5. Select Update, then Generate on the top ribbon to regenerate the schema.

Data Platform Workflows for UNS#

The UNS Export Integration creates a specialized Data Platform Workflow — an automation controller that processes Light CDM events and publishes them to MQTT.

Viewing UNS Workflows#

To view the UNS automation controllers in your environment:

1. Navigate to Data Platform > Data Platform Workflows.
2. Look for controllers created through the UNS Export Integration business scenario.

Each controller displays:

Workflow Structure#

The UNS automation controller contains a single Setup workflow with three sequential tasks:

1. Job Start — triggers when a configured CDM event is received. Outputs the raw event data and IoT event metadata.
2. Code Execution — transforms the raw CDM event data into an MQTT topic string by extracting the ISA-95 hierarchy names and appending the event type. Spaces are replaced with hyphens for topic compatibility.
3. Distributed Message Send — sends the transformed data (topic + payload) to the UnsExportIntegration.SendToMqtt service, which publishes it to the MQTT broker.

IoT Event Definition Bindings#

Each UNS automation controller is bound to one or more IoT Event Definitions. These bindings determine which CDM event types the controller subscribes to and processes.

To view the bindings:

1. Open the automation controller in Data Platform > Data Platform Workflows.
2. Review the associated IoT Event Definitions. Each binding specifies:
   • The IoT Event Definition name (for example, ResourceStateChange).
   • The Supported Event Variant (Light).

Creating UNS Automation Controllers#

New UNS automation controllers are created through the Cortex chatbot using the UNS Export Integration business scenario:

1. Navigate to Data Platform and open the Activity Center > Chatbot.
2. Select the UNS Export Integration business scenario.
3. Follow the guided flow to name the controller and select IoT Event Definitions.
4. Load the generated Master Data Package.

For detailed steps, see Configuring UNS Export Integration.

Relationship to Other Data Platform Features#

UNS Connectivity integrates with the broader Data Platform ecosystem:

Related Topics#

• Data Platform Workflows — general Data Platform Workflows documentation
• IoT Event Definition — IoT Event Definition management
• Automation Controller — general automation controller reference
• Real-Time Shop-Floor Insights with UNS and MQTT — tutorial for configuring UNS and verifying events
• Configuring UNS Export Integration — administration guide for UNS setup