Context Manager¶

The Context Manager assigns values to additional contexts which are not natively available. To do so, entity and model extensions are created by the Context Manager on some entities. To obtain these types of contextualization, another source (out-of-the-box or third-party source) is required to provide the information to be contextualized.

The Context Manager aims at finding relationships between production entities that are not directly linked in the source system. For example, a system that provides machine performance data cannot provide the orders processed by the same machine. The Context Manager can search for this piece of information within its structure and add it to OEE data, e.g. a counter or a state.

Contextualized data includes states, counters, tags and speeds (capacity) if one of the sources can totally or partially provide information on these items.

Incoming data is contextualized in real time but, if changes in the validity of the contexts subsequently occur, these would be recontextualized according to the new information.

Available Context Management Modes¶

Contexts can be managed following two different approaches:

• Basic Context Management : when in your scenario multiple contexts of the same type valid at the same time on the same machine are not available (for example, two different orders that cannot be executed simultaneously on the same machine). When this option is applied, the fact table structure is a star schema where the relationships between the fact table and the contexts (dimensions) are in the fact table.
• Multiple Overlapping Contexts Management : this mode should be chosen when what described above can happen. The system can manage the presence of multiple contexts on the same machine at the same time, for example when the production line is able to process two or more orders simultaneously on the same machine. Unlike basic context management, relationships are not created directly in the fact tables, but every relationship to the context is transformed into a many-to-many relationship using a connection table. Every connection table contains references to the fact table and to the context dimension.