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Production Monitoring - Lighthouse Systems

Shopfloor-Online makes collecting production data at various points in the manufacturing process easy. The best method is to collect the data by directly interfacing to the plant equipment (machines via PLCs). This means the data is collected without human intervention, it therefore saves time and is more accurate. Information collected is typically things like:

  • Production counts
  • Spoilage counts
  • Downtime events and reasons (stop codes)
  • Process data (speeds, temperatures….)

Sometimes data has still to be collected manually but now instead of operators recording information on paper they enter information directly in easy-to-use electronic forms. The amount of data to be recorded is usually reduced because Shopfloor-Online already knows who they are, the shift, the machine, the job, the part and so on. They only have to record the pertinent information.

Now the data is in the database it is instantly available for analysis and reporting. Standard reports like production efficiencies, OEE, downtime analysis are available at just a click of a button, providing `big time` savings for those who used to have to provide reports!

Lighthouse Systems

Find out more …

Downtime Analysis
In high volume production operations unplanned downtime is a major issue. The problem many companies face is that they only have a rough idea of downtime because it is being recorded manually, big downtime events tend to be recorded but the many small events are often missed or recorded inaccurately. Furthermore analysing the data is difficult especially to analyse the reasons and track improvements.

Shopfloor-Online can collect machine downtime information either manually or directly from PLCs. Once in the database it can effortlessly provide downtime analysis reports. Downtime can be reported and charted by Machine, Shift, Reason, Products and so on. You can see downtime trends over time to see if any improvement programs are having an affect. You can aggregate reports over time e.g. shift, day, week, month.

Lighthouse Systems

Spoilage
Spoilage is always an issue, not only is it usually a waste of raw materials it is also lost production capacity. In high volume environments it is always a critical issue that is always measured. Spoilage is often accurately known at a macro level, e.g. the OUT – IN, but where spoilage is occurring and why is often much harder to ascertain.

There are various approaches to tackle spoilage, of course it can be recorded manually where ever it occurs (e.g. where product is rejected), but in high speed lines for example it can also be calculated by measuring the IN and OUT at each stage in the process, or taken from devices that are performing automatic inspection and test.

Within Shopfloor-Online Spoilage reports can be automatically generated by shift, day, month etc. Furthermore Spoilage can be analysed at the click of a button and cut by Machine, Reason, Shift, Product and so on, to pin-point problem areas. Spoilage can be monitored over time to see if improvement programs are working.

Shopfloor-Online is able to track spoilage in real-time. If spoilage thresholds are exceeded alarms can be raised to get attention focused immediately.

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