A system and method provides data reporting and real-time user interfaces to a client device of a material handling system according to a unified architecture. The method includes (i) receiving, by a machine automation controller, real-time data of one or more machine automation devices of a material handling system; (ii) controlling, by the machine automation controller, the one or more machine automation devices using the real-time data as feedback; (iii) shaping the real-time data according to a domain model into a staging object; (iv) maintaining a cache object that corresponds to the staging object in a broker process; and (v) responding to one or more client requests for a data item by transmitting at least a portion of data contained in the cache object to a client device for presenting in a user interface. The client device may also be collecting historical data or statistical data for reporting purposes.