Asynchronous tracking concepts and terminology

This section describes central concepts of asynchronous tracking.

Equipment Location

This is a physical location in an equipment where material can reside

Equipment Location Name

This is the unique name of the equipment location within the equipment

Equipment state

The equipment state is the definition of the current condition of equipment in terms of KPI reporting. Examples of equipment states are OEE states and SEMI E10 states. Equipment states relates to Equipment locations. An equipment location may only have one state at a time.

Tracking Identifier

A Tracking Identifier is an identifier that identifies the same material over a set of equipment locations. The tracking identifier is central for the offline tracking to work, and makes it possible to relate material events across equipment locations. The Tracking Identifier strictly necessary in order to derive genealogy relations.

Group Identifier

The Group Identifier is an alternative to the tracking identifier in equipment locations where it is impossible to identify distinct material entities. Group identification makes it possible to reference multiple material entities by the use of one single group identifier

Material Attribute

The term Material Attribute is a collective term for the different attributes of a material entity. The material attributes are:

  • Material Quality Attribute which corresponds to Apis Click&Trace MaterialQuality concept. A material entity may have one Material Quality Attribute. Material Quality Attribute instances are called Material Quality Attribute Values.
  • Article Attribute which corresponds to Apis Click&Trace Article concept. A material entity may have one Article Attribute. Article Attribute instances are referred to as Article Attribute Values.
  • Identifier Attributes which corresponds to Apis Click&Trace Ident definitions. A material entity may have multiple Identifier attributes. An instance of an Identifier Attribute is called an Identifier Attribute value which corresponds to the Apis Click&Trace IdentValue.
  • Data Attributes which corresponds to Apis Click&Trace Data definitions. A material entity may have multiple Data attributes. An instance of a Data Attribute is called an Data Attribute Value which corresponds to the Apis Click&Trace DataValue.

Asynchronous transactions

This term refers to a set of asynchronous transactions that can be handled by by the offline tracking system. The available transactions are introduced below:

  • MaterialEnter. Registering the event of a single material entity entering an equipment location.
  • MaterialExit. Registering the event of a single material entity leaving an equipment location.
  • RegisterMaterialAttributes. Registering material attributes on a single material entity.
  • RegisterInterimMaterialAttributes. Registering material attributes in cases where the material reference is missing.
  • GroupMaterial. Adding a single material entity to a material group by adding a group identifier.
  • UngroupMaterial. Removing a single material entity from a material group by removing the group identifier and update the tracking identifier.
  • MaterialGroupRelease. Removing a single material entity from a material group by removing the group identifier and preserve tracking identifier.
  • MaterialGroupEnter. Registering the event of multiple material entities identified by a common identifier entering an equipment location.
  • MaterialGroupExit. Registering the event of multiple material entities identified by a common identifier leaving an equipment location.
  • RegisterMaterialGroupAttributes. Registering material attributes on multiple material entities identified by a common identifier.
  • AlterTrackingIdentifier. Alter the tracking identifier of a specific material entity.
  • RegisterEquipmentState. Register equipment state in terms of KPI reporting.

These transactions are available in the Apis Click&Trace message library.

Offline Tracking Assistant

This term refers to an application that periodically scans the database for new unrelated asynchronous material transactions and tries to relate the new materials to previous registered materials in upstream tracker process units. This application is responsible of maintaining genealogy in case of offline tracking.

Pending transactions

If for some reason, a transaction cannot be executed, typically since entities on which it depends has not yet been registered, the transaction is put in a pending queue. A typical example of a pending transaction is a RegisterMaterialAttributes transaction that cannot execute since the material for which the attributes shall be registered has not yet been registered by a MaterialEnter transaction. The Offline Tracking Assistant will scan the pending queue periodically and try to execute the pending transaction. There is a configurable maximum time for which the transactions may stay in the pending queue. If this time is exceeded, the transaction will be discarded.