Production Monitoring Software
Production monitoring software reveals what’s happening across your operations and how production data changes over time. It transforms real-time data into actionable information that provides you with a clear view of how your processes are running, where issues are occurring, and where production time is being lost.
Most manufacturers already have some way of tracking production. The problem is how it’s done. Whiteboards, spreadsheets, and disconnected systems are common, but they tend to be inconsistent, delayed, and difficult to use.
For production data to be useful, it needs to be accurate, visible, and easy to work with. For example, Vorne XL does this by connecting directly to sensors on your line and capturing signals in real time, then converting that data into clear production metrics instantly accessible to your entire team - including output, downtime, and OEE.
The result is a system that helps your team move from tracking production to improving it.
How XL Monitors Production
XL collects data directly from your machines by connecting to sensors on your line, whether new or existing. From there, it tracks production activity in real time and builds a clear picture of performance over time.
Even a small number of inputs can generate a rich set of information - supporting both real-time visibility and deeper historical production analysis.
Connect to Your Machines
XL connects to your equipment using sensors (or an output to a PLC), making it easy to start collecting accurate production data without complex integration.
Capture a Rich Data Foundation
From a small number of inputs like an In Count, Out Count, and Cycle Count, XL builds a data foundation that supports a wide range of over 140 production metrics.
See Performance in Real Time
Production data is available immediately through reports, dashboards, and plant-floor displays, giving operators and supervisors clear visibility into current performance.
Understand and Improve Over Time
Historical reports provide the context needed to identify patterns, understand losses, and focus improvement efforts where they will have the greatest impact.
What to Look for in Production Monitoring Software
Once you understand how production monitoring works, the next question is what actually matters when evaluating potential solutions.
The most important factors are how data is collected, how quickly and widely it becomes available, and how easy it is to use that data to drive improvement.
- Accurate, automated data collection: Production data should be captured directly from your machines rather than documented manually to ensure consistency and reliability.
- Immediate visibility into performance: Teams should be able to see what’s happening in real time, without delays, manual updates, or barriers.
- Clear reporting and analysis: Data should be easy to interpret, with reports that highlight targets, losses, and trends.
- Ease of implementation: A production monitoring system should be simple to deploy and work with your existing equipment.
- Support for continuous improvement: The goal isn’t just visibility - it’s using data to identify issues, prioritize improvements, and track progress over time.
XL is designed around these principles, making it easy to collect accurate data, clearly monitor progress, and use that information to drive improvement.
Reporting System or Continuous Improvement Platform?
Production monitoring software is often thought of as a group of reports. Reporting is only the beginning. Production monitoring software enables you to make informed decisions and take effective actions to improve your manufacturing operations. As a software solution, it is easy to think of it primarily as a reporting platform. However, its deeper and more important value is as a continuous improvement framework.
Information from production monitoring software can be as broad as an all-encompassing Shift Review (shown below) or as focused as an OEE Deep Dive (discussed later).
Many companies, even today, continue to use spreadsheets, whiteboards, and home grown systems to collect production data. There is no reason to do so anymore. Advances in IIoT and edge computing make it easier than ever to implement a very cost effective production monitoring system that provides deep insights into your manufacturing operations.
Most companies are very surprised to learn that they can build an enormously rich data foundation from just two or three sensors. In fact, all the reports shown in this article can be generated from just three sensors: In, Cycle, and Out.
Not ready to take the leap? No problem. You will still learn a lot of valuable techniques by reading further!
Five Production Tracking Software Report Examples
Here are five reports that manufacturers use every day to find lost time, fix recurring problems, and run tighter shifts. Each one is available out of the box in Vorne XL, and every one of them can be configured to highlight what matters most to your operation.
Usually, you will achieve the best results using a mix of built-in reports and custom reports:
- Built-in reports provide immediate insights through the lens of best practices
- Custom reports provide the exact information you want, formatted the exact way you want it, to best support your continuous improvement projects
Either way - the goal is to give you the information you need to confidently and rapidly improve production.
All Production
Your Entire Enterprise on One Page
The name says it all. This report shows you data for every work center and rolls it up across area and site through to your entire enterprise. It is your production tracking gold standard, providing one page from which you can monitor your entire plant (or enterprise). For example:
- Check if lines are operating as expected
- View production across key metrics (OEE, losses, cycle time, and more)
- Switch between hourly (operational), weekly (tactical), and long-term (strategic) views
- Customize views based on the metrics that matter most
- Compare performance across similar work centers
- Identify consistently underperforming lines
One page. Every single line, area, and plant. Roll up, drill down, explore, and improve.
OEE Deep Dive
From Score to Improvement Roadmap
OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) continues to be the single most important metric for measuring manufacturing productivity. Every manufacturing operation should know their OEE score. However, when viewed through the lens of continuous improvement, the most important OEE metrics present OEE in terms of loss - such as Availability Lost Time. Focusing on OEE from a loss perspective transforms OEE from a benchmark into a family of actionable improvement metrics - even more so when expanded to the Six Big Losses.
For example, consider a Pareto chart of parts that stacks OEE losses in units of time to show which parts have the biggest loss impact (as shown below). This report is interesting because it is purposefully not based on normalized data - if a part is run more frequently, it will have more impact on losses, and it will present a larger opportunity to reclaim production time. This is an example of transforming an OEE software solution into a continuous improvement tool.
Most manufacturers find their first OEE Deep Dive uncomfortable. And then they find it indispensable.
Downtime Analytics
Find It, Fix It, Prevent It
Downtime is the largest source of lost production time for most manufacturers. Your production monitoring system should track downtime in real time (empowering operators to take immediate action) AND present downtime with historical context (empowering managers to make data driven decisions).
Short-term vs long-term
- Get lines back up and running quickly (short-term improvements)
- Identify and mitigate downtime patterns to prevent them in the future (long-term improvements)
What the Downtime report helps you do
- Identify and mitigate your largest sources of downtime
- Detect emerging issues before they grow
- Analyze downtime by part, shift, or process
- Compare performance across shifts to uncover patterns and share tips
Continuously improve. One downtime issue at a time. That’s how meaningful improvement happens.
Total Production Timeline™
See Patterns You'd Otherwise Miss
The Total Production Timeline™ (TPT) report is designed for analyzing shorter time periods, such as individual shifts and part runs. By aligning data over time and across dimensions like Part, Shift, Hour, and Production State, it becomes much easier to spot patterns, trends, and problem areas.
How it helps
- View production sequentially over time
- Compare performance across multiple dimensions
- Identify patterns that aren’t visible in standard reports
Visual insights at a glance
- Heat Map Colors highlight efficiency, downtime, OEE, and other metrics
- State colors show production status (run, changeover, down, break)
Taken together, these analytical perspectives and color models provide a visual palette from which it is much easier to identify patterns, trends, and problem areas.
Scan through data, make new connections, and improve in ways you never could before.
Andon
Know Where Attention Is Needed in Seconds
Andons are a fundamental element of traditional lean manufacturing and continuous improvement programs. We discuss them in depth in our article about Andons, but here is a quick summary:
How it helps
- Quickly identify where action is needed
- Use color to communicate conditions clearly across many lines
- Display targeted KPIs to add context
The Andon report visually represents the real-time status of every process in a way that enables you to quickly identify areas of concern.
Monitor lines consistently, respond to problems swiftly.
See these reports reflect your actual data. Start a free 90-day trial with no commitment, and no IT projects. Most customers are up and running in 8 hours.
Custom Reporting
Invariably, there is great excitement when you transition from whiteboards and spreadsheets to a production monitoring system that provides you with so much more information and actionable intelligence. Equally invariably, there will reach a point where you say, “But, I want to see….” This is why custom reports are a critical part of production tracking software.
Every manufacturer has unique needs, and the ability to create reports that capture exactly the information you want, exactly how you want to see it, will quickly become a critical requirement. For example, when executing a continuous improvement project, custom reports enable you to curate the perfect, one-stop dashboard with which to gain insights and measure progress.
Dashboards
If a built-in report does not meet your needs - there is a simple solution. Configure your very own custom dashboard. Create as many dashboards as you would like, choosing widgets, data dimensions, and metrics to tell your own story. Save it. Share it. See exactly the information you need. No more and no less. Take control and create your ideal production tracking dashboard.
Widgets provide you with the visual elements of your dashboard, each widget highlighting information in its own unique way.
Dimensions and metrics provide you with the data elements of your dashboard, defining the set of production data that will be featured for each widget.
If deep in your heart, you always wanted to combine a Counts by Hour chart, a Real-Time andon, a Top Losses table, and Down Time and Yesterday’s OEE KPIs in one place - who are we to say no!
Email Alerts and Reports
Extend the idea of real-time data capture to real-time email alerts and reports. Have data from the shop floor automatically delivered to your email inbox by subscribing to the alerts and reports that are most important to you.
- Email Alerts are ideal for quickly responding to emerging issues
- Email Reports are ideal for retrospective summaries
Subscribe to:
- Email Alerts for production lines that fall within your area of responsibility, and set escalation triggers appropriate for your role
- Email Reports that include production data from multiple production lines for a convenient one-stop retrospective summary
To summarize, email alerts and reports make it much easier for you to keep tabs on your processes, both for emerging issues and for analytical retrospectives, without having to sift through information in which you have no interest.
See Your Production Clearly - Start Your Free Trial
Vorne XL gives you everything on this page, including real-time monitoring, 50+ built-in reports, custom dashboards, email alerts, and more. All in one device that installs in just 8 hours and works with any machine, right out of the box.
Our most popular model is $4,690 and includes unlimited users, unlimited reports, free software updates, free technical support, and an industry-leading 3-year warranty. There are over 42,000 XL installations across 45+ countries, and we encourage you to start with a free 90-day trial. Book a one-on-one webinar, and one of our product experts will be happy to explore the specifics of your application.
With XL you can easily:
- Gain instant access to 140+ real-time and historical metrics including OEE, Six Big Losses, Downtime, Labor Efficiency, and TEEP
- Empower operators to “win the shift” with an integrated real-time scoreboard
- Provide immediate insights for supervisors and managers with 50+ out-of-the-box reports
- Create the exact information you want, formatted the exact way you want it, with an unlimited number of custom dashboards
- Push alerts and email reports to key individuals to deliver the information they need when they need it
- Escalate alerts to proactively call attention to emerging issues
- Visualize all your production lines in a single view
- Understand OEE from a perspective that transforms OEE from a benchmark to a family of actionable metrics
- Add context to any production events with integrated comments
Already have XL? View the newest XL features for more information about what you can accomplish with Vorne XL as your production tracking system.
