Data without insights has no value. In most practical settings, insights are gained by providing users with visual representations of data that allow them to better understand their environment, plan and prioritize their activities, and react to problems. In ei3, one of the key applications designed for this purpose has always been the INSIGHTS Overview dashboards. Those dashboards used to be solely focused on OEE and productivity. In February 2023, the dashboards received a major facelift, allowing for more customizability, more badge types and different layouts – all designed to give ei3 users more relevant information, more quickly.
- Layouts
- Badge Types
- Large Productivity Badges
- Creating Dashboards
- Customizing Dashboards
- Creating Badges
- Organizing Badges
- Deleting Dashboards
- Other Ways to Monitor
Layouts
INSIGHTS Overview dashboards can be displayed using four different layouts:
- Large grid layout; for productivity badges, it is very similar to how INSIGHTS Overview dashboards used to be displayed.
- Small grid layout; it is a more dense version of the large grid layout – the badges are smaller and, therefore, more of them fit on the screen.
- Table layout; instead of the bulky rectangles, each badge is a single slim rectangular line; just like the small grid layout, the table one is suitable for creating higher density displays.
- Factory layout; small, square badges are overlaid on top of a background image that is intended to visualize the factory or the manufacturing process.
You can switch between the layouts using the following toggle, located in the top-right corner of the Overview page:
Below is an example of the same dashboard displayed using the four different layouts:
The large grid layout
The small grid layout
The table layout
The factory layout
As you can see, all layouts include the same machines and the same badge types but those badges are presented in a different fashion. You can switch between them at will for any dashboard you define.
Badge Types
INSIGHTS Overview dashboards can include:
- Machine badges that display information about a specific machine. There are two types of general-purpose machine badges at the moment:
- Productivity badges;
- Downtime badges.
- Machine badges designed for specific types of machines.
- Line breaks that serve the same purpose as the line break character in a text editor.
Note: the availability of badges is dictated by the products enabled on the machine in question. For example, if the selected machine has no downtime tracking enabled, the Downtime badge will not be available for it.
Large Productivity Badges
The productivity badges available in the large grid layout display the running state, machine speed, and productivity figures shown in OEE values for the selected period.
In order for machine values to be properly calculated, the system needs to know which shift schedules to apply the machine productivity to the right place. This is why it’s important to enter the shift schedules properly for your machines.
Each large productivity badge communicates the following information:
- Title / Machine Name – This is the Customer Nickname of the machine. The administrator can change this name to match what you call it on your plant floor.
- Serial Number – The manufacturer’s serial number of the machine.
- Speed – The current actual instantaneous speed of the machine.
- Machine Speed (Chart) – Machine speed measured per the selected period.
- Material – The amount of material produced during the selected chart time range.
- Machine State – There are two possible states for a machine:
- Uptime – The time shown in green since the last stop.
- Downtime – The time shown in red since the last run.
- Project Id – Hovering your mouse over the “i” icon in the top-right corner of the badge will display the machine’s ei3 project id.
The following productivity data as measured over the evaluation period is also displayed:
- Availability – This is a measure of the time a machine has been up and running without any downtime. This metric is dependent upon the time that the machine has been scheduled for production.
- Performance – The average speed at which the machine has been running as a percentage of its designed maximum speed. The average machine speed is divided by the maximum machine speed to compute the performance.
- Quality – The good material produced as a percentage of the total material produced. This is also commonly referred to as First Pass Yield.
- OEE – The Overall Equipment Effectiveness of the machine. OEE is a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) number indicating the overall operational performance of the machine. It takes into consideration the cumulative impact of the preceding 3 factors: the machine’s Availability, Performance, and Quality.
Creating Dashboards
If no dashboard has been created for a particular location, you will see an empty page when you navigate to INSIGHTS Overview:
The “Add Default Dashboard” will create a dashboard composed of productivity badges for every eligible machine; this is the quickest way to get started with data monitoring – and you will be able to easily change it to your liking by flipping the switch in the top-right corner to “Edit”; see below for how to edit existing dashboards.
To manually create a new dashboard, click on “Add Empty Dashboard”. The same option is available later by clicking the “Select Dashboard” button and choosing “Add New Dashboard”:
When creating a new dashboard, the following pieces of information can be provided:
- A name that will be displayed in the dropdown on the top-left of the Overview page; this entry is required.
- A description.
- Which layouts will be available in the View mode of the dashboard, and which one of them will be shown by default. This lets you explicitly design dashboards for various purposes and for various information density – and only have the layouts that are suitable for the purpose.
- A background image that will be used when rendering the factory layout:
Customizing Dashboards
Creating Badges
A newly created dashboard is empty – it contains no badges. Click the large “+” button to create your first badge:
Specify the badge type and the machine – the latter, only for machine badges:
At this point, it is also possible to add a line break to the display, to aid with organizing the badges on your dashboard:
For machine badges, you will then have to select:
- The machine.
- A specific type of visualization; the list of choices will depend on the products that are enabled on the selected machine.
- Additional fields that depend on the type of visualization selected, e.g. a time range.
Clicking the Submit button will add the configured badge to the dashboard, at the very end – after all the existing badges.
IMPORTANT: Currently, every user creates Overview dashboards for their own use only; in other words, dashboards cannot be shared among users. ei3 is planning to add dashboard sharing functionality in a later release.
Organizing Badges
Note: to switch between the Edit and View modes, please use the toggle in the top-right corner of the INSIGHTS Overview page.
While in the Edit mode, the created badges can be modified and reorganized using the small icons located in the top-right corner of each badge:
The “i” icon displays the associated project id of the machine when you hover your mouse over it:
The pencil icon displays the Edit Badge popup where you will be able to modify the machine, the visualization type, and other parameters of the badge – just as when you created the badge.
The icon with four arrows allows you to drag the badge to a different location on the dashboard.
Finally, the “x” icon will remove the badge.
Line break badges can only be moved and deleted – they don’t have any other configuration options. Note that, in Edit mode, line break badges are displayed as thick, gray, dashed lines; those lines are not visible in the View mode of the dashboard.
Deleting Dashboards
To delete an existing dashboard, you have to first select it using the “Select Dashboard” button:
Then, click the pencil icon to the right of its name:
When the “Edit Dashboard” popup appears, click on the red DELETE button to permanently remove the selected dashboard from INSIGHTS Overview. Note: this action cannot be undone.
Other Ways to Monitor
Using the Tracker or by downloading one of the machine tracking apps for your mobile device, it is possible to monitor a machine on the go or outside of the workplace.
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