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Shop Floor Digitisation & MES Implementation
Ten operating functions captured at the moment they happen and written to one operational record, so the plant stops keeping ten versions of the truth.
What is shop floor digitisation?
Replacing paper forms, whiteboards and private spreadsheets with digital workflows that capture events where and when they happen.
Production, quality, maintenance, safety and material events are recorded at source, so the whole plant works from one operational record rather than from numbers reconstructed after the shift.
It is also called paperless manufacturing or shop floor data collection, and it is the job a manufacturing execution system (MES) exists to do. Whether that system is a platform we implement or software we build, the test is the same: the record is created where the work happens.
Why paper and spreadsheets fail
Production has a board, quality has a register, maintenance has a logbook and stores has another. Each is kept honestly and none of them agree, because they were never designed to be the same record.
Captured after the fact
A downtime event gets its reason code the next morning, chosen by someone who was not there, from a list nobody has reviewed in years.
Owned by one person
The critical spreadsheet lives on a supervisor’s laptop. It works because they maintain it, and stops working the week they are on leave.
Invisible until month end
Nobody knows the line missed plan until the review deck is assembled. By then, the shift that could have recovered it was weeks ago.
The ten functions we digitise
Each one is a working system in its own right. The value comes from all of them writing to the same record.
Production and throughput
Production monitoring and downtime tracking at source: output, plan against actual, cycle time and changeovers.
Quality and compliance
Inspection plans, in-process checks, non-conformance and CAPA, caught at the station that caused them.
Maintenance and reliability
Preventive schedules, breakdowns, spares and machine history in one place.
Safety and EHS
Permits to work, incidents, near misses and observations, evidenced continuously.
Utilities, energy and ESG
Energy monitoring: power, air, water and steam metered against output rather than arriving as a monthly bill.
Traceability and genealogy
A traceability system with a searchable thread from material receipt to the pallet that left your gate.
Warehouse and supply chain
Plans, orders and consumption reconciled against what the floor actually produced.
Procurement and suppliers
Supplier quality, audits and risk linked to the problems they caused.
Workforce and skills
Attendance, allocation and skill matrices connected to the lines people run.
Control tower and reviews
One live view of exceptions, each with an owner and a clock.
MES or bespoke, decided per function
Some plants are well served by a proven MES or operations platform, configured properly. Others have a process no product models, and configuring around it produces something everyone quietly works around. We make the call per function, not per plant.
When an MES fits
Implemented against your actual routing, shift pattern and approval chain rather than the demo configuration, and integrated with your ERP.
When nothing fits
Bespoke workflows for the process that is genuinely yours, on a data model designed to integrate.
One function at a time
Released in sequence so each one earns its keep before the next begins, with no long wait for a first result.
Common questions
Is this the same as an MES?
Largely. A manufacturing execution system covers production execution, quality, maintenance, traceability and performance at plant level, which is most of these ten functions. Many plants already own an MES, or part of one, so the right move can be to extend it rather than buy another. Our ISA-95 guide sets out where MES ends and ERP begins.
Will operators actually use it?
Only if it is designed for the conditions they work in: gloved hands, poor light, a short window between cycles and often a shared terminal. We design entry screens around those constraints and test them on the line before go-live, not after.
Do we have to digitise all ten functions?
No, and we would advise against trying at once. Most programmes start with two or three functions where the losses are largest and the data easiest to capture, usually production and quality.
What happens to our existing paper records?
Historical records stay as they are unless there is a compliance reason and a clear payback for converting them. What changes is everything from go-live forward. In regulated environments, the electronic record is designed to satisfy your audit requirements from the first entry.
Start with the audit, not the software.
A fixed-scope diagnosis of where your plant loses information, what it costs you and what to fix first. The roadmap is yours to keep, whoever builds it.