Shop Floor Monitoring with MTConnect

The MTConnect Institute has released a white paper, “Getting Started with MTConnect—Shop Floor Monitoring, What’s in it for You?” It demonstrates the benefits of monitoring a manufacturing plant using MTConnect to collect data and information from the shop floor. MTConnect is a set of open, royalty-free standards intended to foster greater interoperability between manufacturing controls, devices and software applications by publishing data over networks using the Internet Protocol.

The white paper discusses the almost limitless ways companies can use data obtained in the MTConnect format to improve operations, track production and justify decisions that affect plant operations. Topics covered in the paper include many of the common uses for shop floor data, such as:

• Displaying a production dashboard
• Monitoring alerts, equipment availability and usage
• Measuring overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)
• Production reporting/tracking
• Conserving energy
• Achieving mobile, “anywhere, anytime” access to plant floor information
• Applying statistical process control for quality assurance
•  Data mining
• Maintaining part genealogy and traceability
• Improving data security

This white paper is a companion document to the MTConnect Institute’s “Connectivity Guide” white paper. Whereas the “Connectivity Guide” provides the ‘how,’ “Monitoring Your Shop Floor” provides the ‘why.’ Together, these documents present a comprehensive explanation of the benefits of using MTConnect to facilitate monitoring of a shop or plant.

Both white papers can be found here.