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Case study · Industry 4.0

Unified Namespace in an ISA-95 context

Replacing a frozen, point-to-point shop-floor integration with one governed MQTT namespace: new machines in days, data you can trust, no supplier lock-in.

Scope
Shop floor ↔ ERP ↔ MES
Standard
ISA-95 hierarchy
Role
Architecture, integration, security
Duration
18 months

  • 14

    heterogeneous assets in one namespace

  • 0

    existing assets reconfigured per new integration

  • 5

    governance pillars

  • 6

    industrial use cases enabled

The need

The line ran on a centralised platform whose vendor had closed down. Every machine was wired to it with custom logic: nobody could extend it, and adding one machine meant touching what already worked.

On the floor, that means slow changeovers, orders and statuses living in different tools, and data nobody can trace back to a machine or an order. The goal: one place where every asset publishes, and every system reads.

Constraints and decision

ConstraintOptionsDecision
Vendor closed, platform frozenPatch the legacy · buy a UNS suite · open stackOpen MQTT broker and open tooling
Machines can’t be modified, protocols differRewrite PLC code · native MQTT · gateway per assetOne gateway per asset, in front of each machine
Production must not stopBig-bang cut-over · progressive migrationNew sub-tree per asset, legacy keeps running beside
Data must be readable and trustedRaw registers · Sparkplug B · plain MQTT + JSONISA-95 topics, context carried in the payload
A shared broker is a shared riskFlat network · passwords only · layered securitymTLS, ACL per client, MQTTS, OT/IT segmentation

Architecture

Data platform

Edge / shop floor (OT)

  • IIoT OT + sensors
  • IoT + IT systems
  • ERP & SaaS services

MQTT broker

  • Hierarchical namespace · mTLS · ACL

Processing

  • MQTT collection
  • Transformation hub

Storage

  • Time series
  • Traceability
  • Product passports
  • Data warehouse

Consumers

  • Dashboards
  • BI
  • API
  • Applications
  • AI

Unified Namespace, layer by layer

Field & control (OT)

  • Mobile robot
  • Pick-to-light
  • Cobot
  • SMT line
  • Digital I/O

Gateways

  • One per asset
  • Protocol → MQTT
  • Publish to /edge/

UNS core

  • MQTT broker
  • Edge → functional flows

Integration services

  • Cloud MQTT bridge
  • Workflow automation

Business systems

  • ERP
  • MES
  • Cloud applications
MQTTEMQXHiveMQNode-REDDocker ComposePortainerTraefikInfluxDBPostgreSQLGrafanaELK

One tree, readable by anyone

Topic · site / area / line / asset / data

plant/assembly/mobile/transport/amr_01/location

Payload (illustrative)

{
  "ts": "2026-02-01T09:14:22Z",
  "schema": "v1",
  "asset": "amr_01",
  "status": "running",
  "source": "gateway-amr",
  "comm": { "quality": "GOOD" },
  "last_ok": "2026-02-01T09:14:22Z"
}
  • Standardisation
  • Ownership
  • Traceability
  • Lifecycle
  • Versioning

From customer order to assembly

  1. 01Customer order configured on the web configurator
  2. 02ERP creates the order and publishes it to the UNS
  3. 03MES receives the manufacturing order
  4. 04Operator presses a button; the MES triggers the pick-to-light
  5. 05Assembly starts; each step updates the order status
  6. 06Test station posts its result; the order is closed

  • Edge first

    Raw data lands under /edge/, flagged as not contextualised. Only flows up once cleaned.

  • Report by exception

    Publish on change, deduplicated: information, not noise.

  • Two scenarios, one broker

    Historical and new production flows coexist without interfering.

Result

  • Add a machine, not a project

    Five integrations, each a new gateway and a new sub-tree. Nothing existing was touched.

  • One source of truth

    Orders, statuses and machine data share one namespace, readable by IT and OT alike.

  • Traceable by design

    Every message carries source, time and quality, so a value can be trusted or challenged.

  • No lock-in

    Open protocols and replaceable components: the next vendor closure is not a crisis.

Integration timeline

  1. Nov 2024

    Mobile robot

  2. Jan 2025

    GeoLoc

  3. Mar 2025

    Cobot

  4. Jun 2025

    SMT line

  5. Sep 2025

    Second MES

Not proven yet

  • No ROI measured: no production KPIs (OEE, scrap, cadence).
  • No operator adoption study.
  • Single broker instance: resilience not yet tested.

What I learned

  • Governance outlives the broker

    Naming, ownership and topic lifecycle decide whether a namespace stays usable.

  • Context at the source

    Adding it once in the gateway is cheap; rebuilding it in every consumer never ends.

  • Security on day one

    Easy with two clients, painful with twenty.

  • Say what you didn’t prove

    Stated limits make the work easier to trust.

Let’s build what runs next.

Open to Industrial Digital Transformation & Cybersecurity Engineer roles

contact@belatedi.com