Manufacturing Dashboard: Visualizing Production Data on the Shop Floor

Peakboard connects SAP order data, PLC machine signals and quality data in one central dashboard and shows the operator on the display exactly what they need for their shift – no printout, no switching systems, no delay. That is production data visualization with Peakboard: no spreadsheet that arrives two hours too late, no information lost between systems, no dashboard that is never opened again after launch.

What is a manufacturing dashboard?

A manufacturing dashboard is a digital display surface that visualizes production KPIs in real time. It replaces manual status reports, printouts and outdated spreadsheets with an automatically updated view that makes all relevant information accessible at a glance.

Peakboard builds manufacturing dashboards on top of existing data sources – without its own database, without a separate server. The connection to the machine controller, the ERP and other systems is made through low-code configuration, not programming.

What data belongs on a shop floor dashboard?

The answer depends on the audience:

• Operator dashboard: order number, target quantity, actual quantity, cycle target, current fault messages and next job. No distraction from data the operator cannot influence.
• Shift leader dashboard: OEE per line, downtime by cause, open actions, order status for all lines.
• Plant management: daily output vs. plan, weekly trend, KPI comparison across lines and shifts.

Peakboard enables a dedicated dashboard for each of these audiences on the same platform and with the same data sources.

Data sources for manufacturing dashboards

A dashboard is only as current as its data sources. Peakboard connects to over 100 data sources typically present in manufacturing plants:

• Machine controllers: PLC (Siemens S7, Beckhoff, Allen-Bradley), OPC UA, MQTT, MTConnect
• ERP systems: SAP (RFC, OData), Microsoft Dynamics, proALPHA
• Databases: SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle
• Files and cloud: Excel, CSV, SharePoint, REST APIs

Visualization types for production data

Not every KPI needs the same format. Proven visualization types for production data:

• Traffic light: quick status per machine or line – green running, yellow idle, red stopped
• Gauge: OEE value on a scale, readable at a glance
• Time series: OEE trend over a shift or week
• Pareto chart: downtime reasons sorted by frequency
• Progress bar: target vs. actual for quantity and time

Connection to shop floor management

Production data dashboards are the basis for evidence-based shop floor management. The daily shop floor meeting at the SQCDP board needs current figures – not estimates from the day before. Downtime tracking supplies the data for stoppage analysis. And the OEE metric is the central control figure on every production dashboard.