See every stop on the line, with a reason your team believes.
Your PLCs, HMIs, Kepware or OPC server, plus the spreadsheets people keep beside the machines, feed one live plant dashboard that we build. The controls time each stop. Operators on the line say why it happened. The downtime number in the morning meeting becomes one the floor recognizes.
The sample dashboard runs on representative sample data, not a client's.
- 1Changeover24 min
- 2Waiting on material17 min
- 3Infeed jam11 min
- 4Tool change14 min
Why stops go missing
Most downtime reports are written after the fact. A jam gets cleared, a changeover runs long, material shows up late, and the line starts again. At the end of the shift someone fills in the sheet from memory.
Short stops rarely make the sheet at all. Longer ones land under a catch-all reason, because the list was written for a different line years ago, or because nobody asked while the stop was still fresh.
The controls know the machine stopped, but not why. The operator knows why, but that answer never reaches the report. So the report becomes a mix of estimates, and the people closest to the work stop believing it. Maintenance ends up chasing the loudest problem instead of the one that costs the most minutes.
How the dashboard catches them
A downtime number holds up when three things are true. We build the dashboard around all three.
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Status comes from the controls.
Running, idle and stopped are read from the PLC or the OPC server. Every stop gets a start, an end and a length, the short ones included.
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Reasons are captured with the crew that runs the line.
We write the reason list with your operators and supervisors, in the words they use on the floor. The reason is recorded close to the stop, by someone who saw it.
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Totals add up by reason and by machine.
Stopped minutes roll up by reason and by machine, across shifts, days and weeks. The pattern shows on the screen, without anyone rebuilding a spreadsheet.
We connect to what already runs your plant: Allen-Bradley and other PLCs, HMI screens, Kepware and other OPC servers, and the spreadsheets that fill the gaps.
Beyond downtime
The same connection feeds the rest of the plant dashboard, so every view works from the same numbers.
Machine status
Running, idle or stopped for each work center, as it changes.
Part counts
Good and total parts by line, by shift and by part number.
Run rates
Actual pace against the ideal cycle time, so slow running shows up too.
Scrap
Rejects by machine and cause, where the controls or quality records carry the data.
OEE
Availability, performance and quality, worked out from the same numbers the floor sees.
Trends
Shift against shift and week against week, so a change is easy to spot.
A straight word on OEE
The controls supply the stops and the counts. They have no idea of the shift calendar or the ideal cycle time for each part. Your ERP or your engineering standards normally hold those, so we connect them rather than guess.
What else we build for plants and the offices behind them
The dashboard is often the first project. The same team takes on the work around it.
Spreadsheet workflows rebuilt as web apps
The spreadsheets a process depends on become governed web apps. Each one keeps an audit trail and controls who can do what, and no rebuild starts until you have signed off on the rules it will follow.
Workflow automation and integrations
Handoffs run on their own, and the systems you already use pass data to each other.
One structured data layer, open through APIs
Plant and business data in one consistent structure, with APIs so other tools and teams pull from the same source.
Reporting that assembles itself
The weekly and monthly reports people put together by hand come together from the data instead.
Custom internal tools
Focused tools for supervisors, operators and the office staff behind them.
Ongoing support
Help with changes and improvements after launch, if you want it.
Who does the work
More than 20 years spent building systems in businesses where operations do the heavy lifting, with these skills on one team:
- PLC and controls work, Allen-Bradley included
- Data integration and data architecture
- Frontend and backend development
- ERP advisory
Read-only on your controls. Yours to keep.
A downtime dashboard should add visibility to the floor, never risk to production.
A one-way connection: read, never write
We read status, counts and tags. Nothing we put in place sends a command to a PLC or changes a setpoint, and your controls and IT people can check the connection for themselves.
You own what gets built
The code is yours and so is the data. The systems run inside your environment, and ongoing support is optional, not a licence.
Tell us about the line where the downtime numbers don't add up.
Tell us what runs the line, how stops get logged today and what the report gets wrong. You'll talk with the people who would build the dashboard, and if it isn't the right fix, we'll say so.
The sample dashboard runs on representative sample data.