Industrial Automation
The machines on your floor already know how many units they made and how long they sat idle. In most plants that knowledge dies at the machine, because the only route from the sensor to the ledger runs through a person with a clipboard.
Industrial Automation streams the signal straight into Business Central: output counted automatically, run-time captured continuously, and an alert raised when the line drifts off plan, while the shift is still running.
OEE measured, not estimated.
Machine data, posted while it happens.
- Category
- Automation
The gap it closes
What you live with until you fix it.
- Output counted by the machine, then counted again by a person
- OEE estimated from a formula rather than measured from the line
- Idle time invisible until the shift report is compiled
- Off-plan drift found at the end of the run, when it is already a scrap number
- A plant full of data that never reaches the ledger
How it works
4 steps. No clipboard in any of them.
- 01
Tap the signal
Sensors and machine controllers are read directly: the count, the run state, the cycle time. Nothing is retyped.
- 02
Post to the ledger
Output posts automatically against the production order, so the ledger reflects the machine rather than a summary of it.
- 03
Measure run-time and OEE
Availability, performance and quality computed from what the line actually did, the only version of OEE worth acting on.
- 04
Alert on drift
When the run goes off plan, someone is told during the shift, not shown a chart about it the following week.
What’s in it
Features.
- Sensor & machine data capture
- Automatic output posting
- Run-time & OEE tracking
- Off-plan alerting
Technical specification
Specs.
- Inputs
- Machine sensors, controllers, counters
- Posting
- Automatic output against the production order
- Metrics
- Run-time, availability, OEE
- Alerting
- Off-plan drift raised in-shift
Who runs it
The floors this was built on.
Proof
What it looks like in practice
- Output posting, straight from the machine
- Automatic
- OEE from the line, not a formula
- Measured
- Drift alerts, while it can still be fixed
- In-shift
“We thought we knew our downtime. The machines disagreed with us by a wide margin, and the machines were right.”
Common questions
Industrial Automation, answered.
What machines can you connect to?
Anything exposing a readable signal: sensors, counters and controllers. Where the machine speaks a PLC protocol, PLC Integration for Business Central is the companion extension that handles it.
Do we still need operators to post output?
Not for the count. Operators still handle the judgement calls (scrap reasons, quality holds, stoppage causes), which is where a person adds something a sensor cannot.
How is OEE calculated?
Availability, performance and quality, all from measured line data rather than assumed standards. If the number comes out worse than you expected, that is rather the point.
Start here
See Industrial Automation on your own data. Not a canned demo.
We will run it against a process you actually have, and tell you plainly whether it earns its licence in your plant. If it does not, that is a useful answer too.