The challenge

Tracking work order status and production performance on manual spot welder operations at a sheet metal manufacturer required a full-time supervisor. Tracking operator performance was based on subjective evaluations and dependent on the part being produced. The company wanted a way to gather order and performance metrics from non-connected spot-welding machines.

Our solution

A custom-built IoT device collects weld count information and controls the operation of the spot-welder foot pedal. Edge software on the IoT device tracks the operator, work order and part information entered through an operator panel. An overhead display on the ShopFloor visible to operators and the ShopFloor supervisor displays production status and operator performance metrics.  Cloud-hosted server application provides dashboards and reports for production status and performance.

Business value

  • Production status monitoring in real-time
  • Reduced supervisor oversight
  • Operator performance metrics
  • Significant reduction in manpower costs for monitoring
  • User Analytics

The results

+7%

PRODUCTIVITY

-25%

FLOOR SUPERVISION TIME