For operations leaders with more than one plant
Every plant on the same numbers, defined the same way.
We connect the PLCs, HMIs, Kepware or OPC servers and the spreadsheets at each of your plants into one live dashboard: machine status, part counts, run rates, uptime and downtime with reasons, scrap where the data exists, OEE and trends. Each number has one definition, so a gap between two plants is a gap on the floor, not in the math.
Read-only to the controls. Yours to own.
- Uptime, this week86%
- Unplanned downtime5.2 h
- Top stop reasonChangeover
- Uptime, this week89%
- Unplanned downtime3.8 h
- Top stop reasonMaterial wait
- Uptime, this week81%
- Unplanned downtime7.1 h
- Top stop reasonTooling
Sample values for illustration. The labels, and the rules behind them, are identical in every plant.
The problem
Why plant numbers don't line up
Most plants built their reports on their own, one spreadsheet and one habit at a time. Each made sense where it started. Put side by side, they stop agreeing.
At one plant a changeover counts as downtime. At another it is planned time and drops out of the figure. One site types stop reasons into a free-text box, the next picks from a code list someone set up years ago. One OEE runs on a 24-hour day, another on scheduled hours only.
So the monthly review shows Plant A ahead of Plant C, and nobody in the room can say whether A runs better or counts differently. The meeting turns into an argument about spreadsheets instead of a decision about the floor.
We start there. Agree what each number means, then pull it the same way from every plant.
Before any screen
One definition per number
We settle these with your plant managers first and write them down. Every plant's dashboard then reads from the same rules.
Stop reasons
One code list for every plant, grouped the same way. A material wait in one building is a material wait in the next, and the reasons roll up cleanly.
What counts as downtime
Changeovers, breaks, planned maintenance, no orders to run. Decide once whether each is planned or unplanned, then apply it at every site.
OEE inputs from ERP and standards
Ideal cycle times per part come from your ERP or your engineering standards. We map them in from the source that owns them.
Shift calendars
Each plant's shifts, holidays and scheduled hours, taken from the system of record, so availability is measured against the right hours.
A plain word on OEE. The controls report when a machine runs and what it counts. They don't know your shift calendar or your ideal cycle times. Those usually come from ERP or your standards, not from the controls, which is why they are on this list.
How it rolls out
One plant first, then the rest
Staged work. Your people check the numbers before anything moves to the next site.
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Step 1 · First plant
Agree the definitions
Pick one plant. Walk the floor and the tag list with that team, and settle stop reasons, downtime rules, calendars and cycle times.
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Step 2 · First plant
Connect and check
Set up a read-only connection to the controls and the spreadsheets around them. Put the first dashboard up, and let the plant team check each number against what they see.
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Step 3 · Each next plant
Repeat the same model
Map each new plant's tags and codes onto the definitions already agreed. Its numbers arrive comparable, and the dashboard shows the plants side by side.
Capabilities
The work around the numbers
The plant dashboard is often the first project. The same team builds what tends to come after it.
Spreadsheets rebuilt as web apps
The workbook a process depends on, rebuilt as a governed web app with an audit trail and permissions. You approve the rules before anything is rebuilt.
Automation and integrations
Hand-offs between people and systems automated, and the systems connected, so data moves without being keyed in twice.
A structured data layer
Plant and business data in one organized store, with APIs, so other tools and teams read the same numbers.
Reports that assemble themselves
The weekly plant review and the monthly roll-up, built from the data rather than pasted together by hand.
Custom internal tools
Focused tools for the people who run the floor and the office behind it, shaped around how they already work.
Ongoing support
Help keeping what we build running and improving, if you want it. It is optional, never a licence.
How it is built
We read from your controls and never write to them. What we build is yours.
A read-only connection
We read tags, counts and logs from PLCs, HMIs and OPC servers. Data travels one way, out of the controls and never back in: nothing we install can send a machine a command or touch a setpoint. Your controls and IT people can confirm that for themselves.
Owned by you
Everything we build runs in your environment and belongs to you: source code, plant data and the running systems alike. There is no licence to keep paying. Ongoing support is there if you want it, and optional if you don't.
Contact
Tell us about your plants
How many sites, what runs on the floor, and which number never matches in the review. We'll give you a straight answer on whether this fits, and what a first plant would involve.
Between them, the team programs PLCs and controls, Allen-Bradley included, structures and integrates data, writes both backend and frontend code, and advises on ERP. Their background is 20+ years of putting systems into businesses where operations carry the weight.
This opens the contact form on the main Vectis Works site.