ARCHITECTURE
Four layers, deliberately decoupled
The architecture below is not complicated, and that is the point. A plant system has to keep collecting data while it is being maintained, must never put reporting load on a control network, and has to survive the failure of any one part without losing production history. Those three requirements shape everything here.
Why it is built this way
Collection survives maintenance
Because acquisition writes to the database independently, the web application can be updated, restarted or taken offline without interrupting data collection. You can maintain the system during production.
No load on the control network
The MES queries the database, never a PLC. No report, no dashboard and no curious user can put load on the controllers running your production.
Buffered against interruption
The acquisition services buffer locally, so a network problem or a database restart delays data rather than losing it. Production history has no gaps.
Read-only acquisition
We read from your controllers; we do not write to them. The MES does not sit in the control path and cannot influence what a machine does.
Heterogeneity absorbed low down
Vendor and protocol differences are resolved in the acquisition layer, so everything above the database is uniform regardless of what produced the data.
No platform licence underneath
Linux and MySQL database carry no per-core or per-seat licence cost, so the infrastructure under your MES does not generate a recurring bill to a third party.
BRING YOUR IT TEAM
We are happy to go through the architecture in detail with whoever will have to approve it, and to answer the awkward questions directly.