10. The computer system of claim 1 wherein the named data item specifies a metric, and wherein the context data specifies a time range over which a value for the metric is to be determined.
1. A computer system including a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for processing manufacturing information requests, wherein the processing carried out by the computer system comprises the steps of: receiving an information request to retrieve information based on a named data item defined by a configured manufacturing data model; in response to the receiving step, relating data coming from at least one backend system and adding context data according to a definition of the named data item in the configured manufacturing data model, the context data defining a relevant scope of data corresponding to the information request, wherein the at least one backend system comprises a time-series data buffer and wherein the named data item is of a dimension quantifiable by time; configuring the named data item using a dimension-based time-slicing capability comprising a time-defining dimension wherein the time-defining dimensions further comprises time-defining fields consisting of either a start time and an end time or a start time and a duration and said time-defining fields are absolute time stamps for the named data item; preparing a result, corresponding to the information request, according to a specified format and filtering criteria; producing an information response in a normalized format, the information response containing the requested information and the context data corresponding to the information request; and transmitting the information response in the normalized format to a requestor.