Manufacturing Data Engine (MDE) is Google’s solution for making factory-floor machine data available in Google Cloud in a structured way. Instead of building a bespoke connection for every use case, MDE serves as a central data hub on which analytics, ML, and integration use cases are built.
What is Manufacturing Data Engine?
Per Google Cloud documentation, Manufacturing Data Engine (MDE) is an end-to-end solution that, in combination with Manufacturing Connect (MC), delivers scalable and seamless connectivity between the factory floor and the cloud. MDE provides a zero-code, pre-configured set of Google Cloud infrastructure that is able to ingest, process, and store data from industrial devices in the cloud based on the user’s configuration. Once machine and processed data are available in Google Cloud, Google Cloud tools and technologies can be used to extract value from that data.
Per Google, acquiring industrial data has traditionally been a high-complexity, high-cost process that adds unnecessary time and cost to any cloud-based industrial information management use case. MDE is designed to make that process shorter, more efficient, and more predictable. MDE handles the end-to-end need of ingesting, contextualizing, storing, and using factory data in the cloud, and, together with Manufacturing Connect, extends directly to the source of the data: the machines and systems on the factory floor, across any automation vendor standard.
MDE is delivered as a packaged solution. A script deploys all the required components and the integration code into the customer’s Google Cloud project, unlocking flexibility to modify and extend the architecture as needed.
The manufacturing suite
MDE is a core component within a suite of interconnected manufacturing solutions. While some other components can function independently, its true power lies in the integration. The end-to-end suite is composed of components built by Google and components built by Litmus Automation exclusively for Google:
- Manufacturing Data Engine: serves as the acquisition, transformation, and storage layer of the suite, providing a secure, efficient, and reliable data lake for all manufacturing information.
- Manufacturing Connect (MC): the cloud component for remotely managing all Manufacturing Connect edge (MCe) instances, and the web interface for configuring the MDE solution. Per the documentation, a standalone web interface for MDE is also available for customers without MC or MCe.
- Manufacturing Connect edge (MCe): an edge-to-cloud gateway capable, per the documentation, of translating more than 270 industrial communication protocols into standardized Pub/Sub messages, with additional edge processing and storage capabilities.
- Manufacturing Analytics and Insights: a prebuilt LookerML integration with MDE, enabling the use of Looker as a BI tool to explore and analyze MDE factory data.
- Machine Anomaly Detection: based on the Time Series Insights API.
- Visual Inspection AI: an edge solution based on the Cloud Vision API.
Per the documentation, the suite’s components are designed to work seamlessly together, share a common configuration, and are semantically interoperable, while still offering the flexibility to use them individually based on specific needs.
Cost
Per the documentation, there are no extra costs for using MDE itself; you only pay for your cloud consumption, which starts at a minimal level for proofs of concept. Using Manufacturing Connect (MC) incurs an additional cost per the documentation; Google refers to the MC Cloud Marketplace listing for further details.
Core Features
- Zero-code data ingestion: Ingest industrial data without custom development, either via MC or any other edge stack.
- Syntactic standardization: Uses standard data storage schemas across a variety of data archetypes, reusable across all use cases.
- Semantic flexibility: An optional data contextualization engine following ISA-95, DTDL, OPC-UA companion specifications, and Asset Administration Shell (AAS).
- Full data ownership: Since all components run in the customer’s own Google Cloud tenant project, the customer retains full control over data and processing.
- Extensibility: All Google Cloud integrations are usable by default, and additional MDE-specific extensions can be added.
Typical Use Cases
Analytical use cases
MDE is combined with Google Cloud data analytics products to produce reports, calculate KPIs, and create real-time dashboards using data streamed from the manufacturing floor.
Machine learning use cases
Factory data collected in MDE is used with Google Cloud ML products and platforms to build, train, and run ML models relevant to optimizing manufacturing operations.
Integration use cases
Manufacturing data is connected with digital twin solutions or other enterprise systems to provide an integrated view of manufacturing data alongside other enterprise perspectives.
Scaling from PoC to global rollout
A company starts with a proof of concept based on MDE and then scales the solution to a global enterprise rollout across hundreds of factories.
Benefits
- Fast time-to-value: Rapid deployment in standard Google Cloud environments, optionally paired with quick connectivity via MC.
- Scalability: Usable from proofs of concept to global enterprise deployments across hundreds of factories.
- Efficiency through a factory abstraction layer: Capturing data once in MDE drives all downstream use cases.
- Full control: Deployment within the customer’s own Google Cloud tenant project ensures ownership and transparency across all components.
- No cost lock-in: Per the documentation, no extra costs for MDE itself, only for the cloud resources consumed.
Integration with innFactory
As a certified Google Cloud partner, innFactory helps you adopt Manufacturing Data Engine: assessing which suite components fit your factory environment, designing data contextualization following ISA-95, DTDL, or OPC-UA, and integrating with downstream analytics and ML use cases in your Google Cloud project.
Contact us for a consultation on Manufacturing Data Engine.
Typical Use Cases
Technical Specifications
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Manufacturing Data Engine?
Per Google Cloud documentation, Manufacturing Data Engine (MDE) is an end-to-end solution that, together with Manufacturing Connect (MC), delivers scalable and seamless connectivity between the factory floor and the cloud. MDE provides a zero-code, pre-configured set of Google Cloud infrastructure that can ingest, process, and store data from industrial devices in the cloud based on the user's configuration.
What components make up the manufacturing suite?
The documentation lists the end-to-end suite's components as: Manufacturing Data Engine as the acquisition, transformation, and storage layer; Manufacturing Connect (MC) as the cloud component for remotely managing edge instances and as the web interface for MDE configuration; Manufacturing Connect edge (MCe) as an edge-to-cloud gateway for over 270 industrial protocols; Manufacturing Analytics and Insights as a prebuilt LookerML integration; Machine Anomaly Detection based on the Time Series Insights API; and Visual Inspection AI as an edge solution based on the Cloud Vision API.
What does Manufacturing Data Engine cost?
Per the documentation, there are no extra costs for using MDE itself; you only pay for your actual cloud consumption, which starts at a minimal level for proofs of concept. Using Manufacturing Connect (MC) incurs an additional cost per the documentation; Google refers to the MC Cloud Marketplace listing for details.
Who controls the data in MDE?
Since, per the documentation, all MDE components are deployed entirely within the customer's own Google Cloud tenant project, the customer retains full control over their data and processing. All Google Cloud integrations, such as BigQuery connectors, are usable with MDE by default, and components like Pub/Sub, Dataflow, and BigQuery remain transparent and visible to the customer.
Note: All product information on this page has been compiled with care, but is provided without guarantee and may be outdated or incomplete. Cloud services evolve rapidly — features, pricing, SLAs, and availability change frequently. Authoritative and up-to-date information can only be found on the official product page of Google Cloud (official documentation). This page does not represent an offer by Google Cloud.
