Down Time Monitoring

Effective utilisation of assets is an essential step towards increased profitability. Prodigy provides all the tools needed to trap and log the information required to fully understand and measurably improve production.

Overview

By showing the entire production area on a single view, colour can be used to indicate problem areas where production efficiency is below target. By clicking on this plan view you can drill down to the information that shows the real reasons for lost production.

Prodigy can automatically calculate current machine efficiency, production rates, downtime and highlight problem areas through colour change, flashing graphics or traditional alarm mechanisms. By combining these displays with Prodigy’s On Line Maintenance facilities you can access the information needed to help rectify production stoppages or even prevent them occurring in the first place.

Downtime Logger

DTL forms the core of Prodigy’s Downtime Monitoring facilities. It can simultaneously monitor any number of machines or production areas.When a stoppage occurs, it starts accumulating downtime. If the stoppage is too long it will activate an interlock that ensures a reason is entered for the lost production.

Downtime reasons may be collected automatically from PLCs or associated control equipment. Where automatic collection is not possible Prodigy can collect stoppage reasons from operators using either a PC or specially designed range of rugged operator terminals.

DTL supports any number of downtime codes with sub-codes to help manage the data more effectively. DTL also recognises special machine set up codes that allow machine set up times to be tracked without interference from the downtime monitoring system.

As well as monitoring individual machines or processes, DTL can even be configured to monitor linked production lines, handling the more complex requirements of inter machine buffering, materials re-stocking and cascaded interlocks.

Downtime Reporting

As with most parts of Prodigy, the raw data collected by DTL is stored directly in a Microsoft Access™ compatible database. This makes it easy to formulate reports that make the information easy to understand by highlighting the main areas of inefficiency.

Prodigy provides a wide range of standard and user configurable data filters which automatically pre-process the machine data before the creation of management reports using Prodigy's Easy Report software