Glossary

The manufacturing industry has many specialized terms—and many abbreviations. This glossary is a reference of how Rhize defines terms used in this documentation.

Agent: The Rhize agent bridges your plant processes with the Rhize data hub. It collects data that is emitted during the manufacturing process and publishes it to the NATS message broker.
Andon: A system that alerts manufacturing teams about problems in processes or quality.
Audit: The Libre Audit log server is a service that provides a tamper-proof and immutable audit trail of all events that occur in the Rhize system.
Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN): A standardized graphical notation used to represent business processes in an intuitive, visual way. Rhize's BPMN UI and engine provides a low-code interface for complex event handling
Catch event: In BPMN, a catch event reacts to a trigger (compared to a throw event, which returns some result). Only start and intermediate events can catch.
Data source: A source of real-time data that is collected by the Rhize agent, such as an MQTT or OPC UA device
Discrete manufacturing: A form a manufacturing where items are made one at a item, as opposed to in batches or continuously
Electronic batch report (eBR): A detailed report for a batch in a pharmaceutical process, logging items such as the process segments, personnel, equipment, material substance and weight, and so on
Enterprise resource planning (ERP): Software to manage business processes. In Rhize, ERP activities usually are named "operations", where lower-level activities are prefixed with "Work".
Equipment: A tool used in the production process. Equipment has a role in a process segment to convert material into a final good
Equipment actual: Refer to resource actual
Equipment class: An equipment class is a grouping of equipment with a definite purpose
Event: Discrete occurrences or notifications that represent changes or actions within a system
Event orchestration: A pattern in event-driven architecture where a central service, such as NATS, listens to events and decides how to handle them.
Event-driven architecture (EDA): A software design pattern that revolves around the concept of events and event-driven messaging
Event-driven data updates: When an event leads to an update in the real-time database
Finished goods: The final product. Material becomes finished goods when it requires no more processing or production
Genealogy: The ability to trace the raw materials that were used across different levels of a manufacturing process
Hierarchy scope: The scope of the exchanged information, such as a site or area, for which the information is relevant. The scope identifies associated instances of objects such as material, personnel, and equipment
Instance: An identifiable member of a manufacturing class, like a material or process segment, that can be tracked and scheduled
ISO 22400: A standard on KPIs in manufacturing operations management.
Laboratory information management system (LIMS): Software that tracks laboratory data, including samples, experiments, and workflows
Manufacturing data hub (MDH): A centralized platform or infrastructure that serves as a hub for collecting, integrating, storing, and processing manufacturing data from various sources within an organization.
Manufacturing execution system (MES): A system in a manufacturing process that tracks and documents the transformation of raw materials to finished goods
Material: Everything required to produce a finished good. They include raw materials, intermediate materials, and collections of parts
Material class: A group of material with a shared purpose in the manufacturing process
Material definition: A representation of material with similar charecteristics. All material lots must have one associated material definition.
Material lot: A uniquely identifiable amount of material, either countable or weighable
Material sublot: Each separately identifiable unit of a material lot.
Mutation: A GraphQL operation that modifies some data in the database, usually creating, updating, or deleting a resource
NATS: Connective infrastructure to address, discover, and exchange messages in a distributed system. Rhize uses NATS as the broker to publish and subscribe to event data, decoupling communication between services and equipment.
Operational location: Where resources are expected to be located in a plant
Operations definition: The resources required to perform an operation, including for production, quality, maintenance, and inventory, from the perspective of the level-4 enterprise control systems.
Operations event definition: A definition of the properties that pertain to an event from the perspective of the level-4 (ERP) systems.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE): A measure of manufacturing productivity. OEE is commonly calculated as the product of three critical factors: availability, performance, and quality.
Pattern (process segment): A process segment that creates a pattern or template for other patterns or process segments to follow
Personnel class: A grouping of persons whose work shares a definite purpose in the manufacturing process
Physical asset: A physical piece of equipment with an ID
Process segment: A step in a manufacturing activitity that is visible to a business process, grouping the necessary personnel, material, equipment, and physical assets
Process variable context: The context and variables that are passed between tasks in a BPMN workflow
Resource actual: The specific resource used for a specific job. For example, an operations segment may require EquipmentA, but if this equipment is in maintainance at the time of a job, the Equipment actual might be its temporary replacement, EquipmentB
Role-based equipment model: A definition of equipment based on the level-3 and level-4 functions and activities that it performs
Rules engine: A program that evaluates incoming data from a data source and converts significant changes into events to be processed by a BPMN workflow
Serial discrete: A type of discrete manufacturing where each item produced has a serial number
Sink: The destination of a data flow.
Throw event: In BPMN, a throw event returns some response (compared to a catch event, which reacts to some trigger). Only intermediate and end events can throw.
Unit of measure: A defined unit to consistently compare values, duration or quantities
Warehouse management system: A system to organize processes and policies of warehouses. It may include processes to manage and track inventory and exchange data.
Work calendar: A collection of work calendar entries
Work calendar entry: Rules that define a work period, including its start date, duration, and interval.
Work master: A template for a job order, corresponding to an operations and process segment, from the perspective of the level-3 (MES/MOM) systems.