Digital Displays for Production Status – the Improved Way Communicating Floor Performance

Ask your subordinate to show you the data or ignore to check minute by minute reports? Or wait for someone to update your hourly production board.

All these methods are age-old. Display your reports and dashboard on the LCD screen. This is an effective way to monitor shop floor production. Secondly production status will be visible to everyone who is working on the floor. 

Line supervisor or a production manager has basic requirement about production data. 

• How many pieces are made by the line at this moment since morning? 
• What are the operations wise production? 
• At least production update of critical operation in the line? 

You also need data for the same. If you can provide these data on a digital display board, you don’t need to waste time in report making while you need.

You will say it is not possible to track the production of every minute. Checking hourly report or looking into it every half an hour is not possible. 

With technology advancement it becomes possible. Now it becomes easier to display the production status of line real-time. Whatever reports you make in a spreadsheet can be displayed in the LCD screen. Just you need to take how many reports can be viewed in the LCD screen at a time. 

You know the benefits of displaying real-time production and quality status to line supervisors and other staff members. I have mentioned it in another post – Use of display boards on sewing floor and its advantages.

If you have the technology to capture real-time production then, I suggest you add display board (digital) in the sewing floor. Our clients are using an LCD screen to display real-time data on the floor.

I have seen factories to use the LCD screen to display the production status of the sewing lines. Each sewing line has one display board at the end of the line. They display reports based on their need. See example on a few display boards.

Production Quantity and Target Quantity Display

This is a very simple one. They display line output quantity only. Other things like target production report are entered into the system. The balance quantity to be produced by the line in balance time and line efficiency at this moment is calculated by the system. See the following screen.

Line Efficiency Display

Efficiency data can be shown in speedometer or in digits. If you have multiple sewing line in one floor and you like to display data in one display board you can do that. See the screen no 2, the factory is displaying efficiency data for 3 lines. 

Display Production Quantity of critical operations

This screen will give you production of data of the specific operations. It tells WIP level on those specific workstations.

Displaying the production quantity of critical operations of a line will help to see a balancing of the line. If there are pick and valley in the bar chart, you know that there is a balancing issue in the line. See graphs on screen 2.

Screen-2: Efficiency of multiple lines and Production data for specific operations line wise

Display Quality Performance

You are checking stitched pieces at the end-of-line. You prepare quality reports on defects founds and frequency of defects. You do analysis stitching quality in the form of DHU (defects per 100 units) of checked pieces. If you don’t share quality performance of the line your reports have no use.

Display DHU and Pareto Chart of defects on the screen. 

Like production reports, you can display other data and analysis on the LCD screen. One factory displays only operator hourly report on the screen. That helps them to monitor each and every sewing operator in the line. If anybody is producing below the target can be found easily.

You might ask how to make a report on the Excel sheet. And how to get real-time data if you don’t have real-time data tracking technology in your company. 

Prepare report templates and punch data on an Excel sheet and make dashboard in a separate sheet. Then connect dashboard and reports to the LCD screen.

Consider displaying data on screens and place the screen on the shop floor. Make good reports using graph and charts. As data can’t be visible from a distance but a chart can be.

Do you find this information helpful?