Color-Coded Plant Floor Monitoring

Freedom eLog from MAG Industrial Automation Systems is plant-floor monitoring software designed to provide around-the-clock intelligence on machine uptime. The software uses color coding to identify various machining events. For example, on Web-based reports, the software displays machine uptime in green. It also identifies and categorizes downtime events by color coding for analysis. The software links the machines on the plant floor to allow real-time checks for total production activity or individual machine status. It generates alerts and accumulates data for reports that can be generated in a variety of formats.

The software resides in a server, is Web-based and connects to virtually any industrial asset via Ethernet. The application categorizes time into six different areas: plant shut-down, scheduled downtime, delay time, repair time, not-in-cycle process time and in-cycle time. All the categories are color-coded. Below the main navigation, real-time calculations show how much time is being spent in each of the six categories.

The software automatically collects data for in-cycle and NC program start/stop events and then transforms the data into the reports that make the information actionable. Delays can be classified and placed in proper perspective by operators or maintenance personnel to identify delay time, repair time, scheduled downtime and more. The software can send an e-mail or text message to a mobile phone alerting maintenance managers when a machine is down for a specified amount of time, thus allowing corrective action.