Boosting Manufacturing Uptime with Real-Time Dashboards

A leading manufacturing firms contracted INTECH to upgrade its old data systems to a real-time operations dashboard that enables plant managers to access key KPIs in real-time. Quicker knowledge and proactive maintenance contributed to reducing unplanned downtime by 34 percent and enhancing OEE by 58 percent.

Client Overview

A Multi-Plant Manufacturing Leader Elevating Operational Visibility

  • Client

    This is a large manufacturing firm which has several production plants in its network

  • Industry

    High-volume, complex discrete manufacturing with stringent quality and uptime requirements

  • Core Offering

    Two-line, fast-speed manufacturing based on the use of critical machinery, accurate process control, and closely controlled production schedules

  • Mandate

    Replace legacy, siloed monitoring and reporting with a real-time dashboard that unifies KPIs, reduces unplanned downtime, and improves overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) across plants

Challenges We Overcome

KPI Visibility Gaps Undermining Plant Performance

Siloed Production Data

KPIs scattered across PLC logs, local apps, and spreadsheets made it difficult to see a single, trusted view of plant performance

Untapped IoT Signals

High-volume sensor data from machines could not be effectively ingested, normalized, or analyzed, leaving early warning signs buried in raw streams

Reactive Maintenance Cycles

It was the case where maintenance teams were not informed of any live alerts or trends so they would only react when things failed, this resulted in frequent breakdown and long-term production stoppage

Slow, Manual Reporting

End-of-shift reporting and end-of-day reporting compilation took hours and leaders had to make decisions based on old and incomplete information

Scaling Constraints Across Plants

With the addition of new lines and facilities the legacy stack was not able to add new data sources, preventing the uniform visibility of KPIs across the network

Solutions

INTECH's Real-Time Dashboard Solution: Intelligent Plant Control at Manufacturing Scale

Real-Time Production & Machine Views

IoT and PLC data streamed into a central dashboard for live visibility into machine health, line status, and throughput

Predictive Maintenance and Anomaly Alerts

Machine learning interfaces observed the trends and raised early warnings enabling the maintenance personnel to take action before the breakdown and minimize the number of unplanned stoppage

Role-Based Operational Dashboards

Operator, maintenance lead, managers, and executive-specific views made sure that each of the roles only saw the KPIs and the drill-downs they needed

Centralized KPI Command Center

Unified, Intercompany and Cross-Plant KPIs on a single interface, siloed reports are removed, and tracks the performance across all plants and all shifts

Intuitive, Adoption-Ready Interface

Clean layouts, clear hierarchies, and simple filters made complex data easy to read, driving rapid adoption across teams and shifts

Tech Stack

The Data & Analytics Infrastructure Behind Smarter Plant Operations

Pentaho Data Integration

ETL engine ingesting high-volume IoT and PLC data, cleaning and unifying it into analysis-ready streams for real-time and historical insights

IoT Device & PLC Connectors

Reliable connectors linking shop-floor sensors and controllers to the central platform, ensuring continuous capture of machine, line, and energy data

Centralized Time-Series Data Store

Single source of truth for live and historical production metrics, enabling trend analysis, root-cause investigations, and cross-plant benchmarking

Kibana Dashboards & Visualizations

Interactive dashboards turning complex operational data into intuitive views, helping teams monitor KPIs, spot bottlenecks, and act quickly

Predictive Analytics & Alert Engine

Analytics layer detecting anomalies and early warning signals, triggering alerts that support proactive maintenance and protect critical equipment

Results

Measurable Production Gains with INTECH's Dashboard Solution

34% decrease in spontaneous downtime

Real-time monitoring and notifications allowed the maintenance teams to act in time and ensure that minor problems do not develop into complete breakdowns

61% increase in production process efficiency

It was possible to see the bottlenecks and repetitive slows downs and allow the teams to reload the loads, simplify the workflow, and increase the throughput

58% growth in the Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

Cohesive access to availability, performance, and quality enabled improved scheduling, maintenance planning, and used the available resources

Continuous production visibility

Plant leaders now had one place to go to get the truth about line status, machine health and shift performance, in real time in multiple plants

More rapid decision-making processes

Live KPIs over stagnant reports: decisions regarding capacity, maintenance windows and staffing became faster, more evidence-based and sharper

Business Benefits

Real-Time Manufacturing Intelligence Driving Better Plant Performance

  • Improved uptime and reliability

    Live machine monitoring and alerts helped teams to intervene early before potential breakdowns could occur by transforming them into swift, scheduled interventions

  • Streamlined production flow

    Bottlenecks and frequent sluggings were also visible in real time, which helped the leaders to reassign loads and keep the lines moving without interruptions

  • Higher equipment effectiveness

    Unified visibility of availability, performance and quality enabled smarter scheduling and maintenance, and taking more out of the current assets

  • Faster, data-led decision-making

    Always-on KPIs replaced static reports, giving managers a single source of truth for capacity, maintenance, and shift planning

  • Stronger operational control across plants

    Standardized dashboards and role-based views aligned operators, maintenance, and leadership on shared metrics and clear accountability

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