Glossary · IIoT, data and AI
Master data
German: Stammdaten
In data management, master data is the relatively stable core data describing the key business objects of an organization, such as materials, products, equipment, customers, suppliers and locations, which many processes and systems share. It differs from transaction data, such as orders or measurements, which refers to it.
- IIoT
In one sentence
Master data is stable core data on materials, products, equipment and partners that many systems share and transactions refer to.
Example
The material master for a gear motor holds its part number, description, weight and variant data, which ERP, MES and the spare parts catalog all use.
How it applies
- Engineering: Equipment master data, such as asset IDs, locations and hierarchies, links machine signals to the plant structure. Aligning it with the ISA-95 equipment hierarchy simplifies integration.
- Operation: Errors in master data multiply: a wrong unit or duplicate material number affects every order, report and interface that uses it.
- Documentation: Product names, article numbers and technical data in manuals should be pulled from governed master data, not copied by hand. Documentation teams should know who owns which master data object.
Master data vs. transaction data
Master data describes objects and changes rarely. Transaction data records events, such as production orders, bookings or measurements, and grows continuously. Transaction data references master data by key, so master data quality directly affects reporting.