Attaching a reason to every unexplained machine stop
The protocol that most controls speak is read only by design, which means it can report that the spindle stopped at eleven and not why. Execution state and controller mode come across time stamped. Reason codes do not exist in it. So the work is to group every gap longer than a threshold and ask the operator who was standing there while it is still fresh. Older machines with no such port need a current sensor on the drive, and what comes back is inference rather than a reported state.
The quote was built against one revision and the drawing in the operator hand is another, which is the defect this sector is built around.
A request to quote arrives as an archive of geometry files and drawings, or as a line in a customer portal, or as a scan. An estimator opens each one, decomposes the part into operations mentally, estimates setup and run times, and emails suppliers for material pricing before typing a number into a spreadsheet.
- MachineMetrics
- JobBOSS2
- Google Sheets
When this is the wrong thing to build
Pick something else if the shop runs a handful of machines and the owner walks past all of them every hour. Coded downtime earns its place when the count of spindles exceeds what one walk can cover, and when the codes will actually be used to change something. A reason list nobody reads back is data entry.
The constraint that shapes it
Quality certification is the constraint that shapes everything here. More on how this sector works.
A list of things that are missing, worked until it is empty. Read what this shape is, or start from one of these.
- Chasing a compliance file to complete
- Chasing a referral fee through to a closing you cannot see
- Asking for the replenishment before the retainer runs to zero
- Chasing medical records until the set is complete
- Getting a deposition on the calendar of every party
- Chasing the warranty credit the distributor has not issued
- How do I get downtime reasons out of MTConnect machine data?
- Why does machine monitoring show idle without saying what happened?
- How do I monitor an old CNC with no MTConnect adapter?
- What downtime reason codes should a machine shop actually use?
- How do I ask an operator for a downtime reason automatically?
Back to manufacturing, or see how this is priced and scoped.