Why shop floor tracking matters
Most factories know what they planned to make and, eventually, what they dispatched. What happens in between is often recorded in a register at the end of the shift, typed into a spreadsheet the next day and reviewed when the month is already over. By then, the reasons for a short shift or a stopped machine are forgotten.
Shop floor tracking in DotOne records output, rejections and stoppages as they happen, against the job card and the machine. Supervisors and managers see the real position of every order and every machine during the shift, and production planning works from actual progress instead of assumptions.
Job cards and operation-wise output
When a production order is released, the ERP creates job cards for each operation in the routing. A job card tells the operator what to make, on which machine, from which material and to what quantity. As work is done, the operator or supervisor records good output, rejections and time against that card.
- Job cards generated from the routing for every operation.
- Good quantity, rejected quantity and rework recorded per operation.
- Start and stop times, operator and machine captured on each entry.
- Material issued and consumed against the card for accurate costing.
- Next operation released automatically as output moves forward.
Machine, shift and downtime reasons
Every entry is tied to a machine or work centre and a shift, so reports show output by machine, shift, operator and product. When a machine stops, the reason is selected from a defined list such as no material, no operator, breakdown, setup or changeover, power failure, quality hold or planned maintenance.
Over weeks, downtime reason analysis shows where time is really lost. Breakdowns can be passed to the plant maintenance module as work orders, and material waits point to gaps in planning or purchase. Small, frequent stoppages that nobody remembers become visible in the numbers.
OEE explained
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, or OEE, measures how much of a machine planned time actually produced good output at the rated speed. It is calculated as Availability x Performance x Quality. Availability is run time divided by planned production time. Performance is actual output divided by what the machine could have made at its ideal rate in that run time. Quality is good output divided by total output.
A simple worked example (illustrative figures)
Suppose a machine is planned for a 480-minute shift and is stopped for 60 minutes, so it runs 420 minutes: availability is 420 / 480 = 87.5 percent. Its ideal rate is 2 pieces per minute, so it could have made 840 pieces in 420 minutes; it actually made 756: performance is 756 / 840 = 90 percent. Of those, 720 were good: quality is 720 / 756 = about 95.2 percent. OEE is 0.875 x 0.90 x 0.952, about 75 percent. These numbers are only an illustration, not a benchmark or a result from any customer.
The value of OEE is less in the final figure and more in the breakdown. It tells you whether the biggest loss is stoppages, slow running or rejections, so improvement effort goes to the right place.
Tracking without sensors
Many plants assume shop floor tracking needs expensive machine connectivity. It does not. DotOne works with simple entry on a mobile phone or a shared tablet at the machine or line, with large buttons for start, stop, output and reason codes. Supervisors can also enter shift summaries where operators do not use devices.
This gets reliable data flowing quickly and builds the habit of recording reasons. The mobile ERP app supports offline entry where connectivity on the floor is weak and syncs when the network returns.
Optional machine counters
Where it adds value, output counts can come directly from machine counters, PLCs or simple pulse counters fitted to existing machines. Automatic counts remove manual counting errors and capture short stoppages that people do not log. Operators still add the reason when a machine stops, since a counter knows that it stopped but not why.
Counters can be added machine by machine, starting with bottlenecks, so the investment follows the benefit. Integration options are covered on our ERP integration services page.
WIP visibility
Because every operation records its output, the ERP knows how much of each order sits between operations at any time. A WIP view shows quantities waiting before each machine or stage, how long they have been waiting and which orders are falling behind their due dates.
Sales can answer customer questions about order status without calling the floor, planners can see bottlenecks forming, and WIP value is available for month-end accounts. Shop floor data also feeds reporting and analytics dashboards for daily production reviews.
