Digital shop floor management: The future of manufacturing processes

Digital shop floor management makes production transparent in real time and replaces paper, Excel and whiteboards with live dashboards. First and foremost it is a leadership method from lean management – the software supports it, but does not replace it.

What is digital shop floor management?

Shop floor management means leading directly at the place of value creation, the Gemba. Digital shop floor management transfers this principle into real time: key figures, status and actions are pulled automatically from machines and ERP onto digital boards instead of being maintained by hand. This way, teams and managers can see at any moment where production stands.

Why is digitalisation worth it?

Analogue processes cost time every day, and decisions are often based on gut feeling rather than data. Digital shop floor management delivers three benefits: real-time transparency instead of outdated information, faster response times when problems occur, and data-based decisions in the daily shop floor meeting.

Which building blocks belong to it?

Digital shop floor management is made up of several building blocks that work together:

• The shop floor meeting at the SQCDP board as the daily heartbeat.
• The Andon board, which makes disruptions visible immediately.
• A digital call system for automatic escalation.
• A digital shift log for seamless handovers.
• Visual operator control that makes data understandable at the workplace.
• Smart shop floor communication that delivers the right information to every workplace.
• Production controlling as the data basis with target-actual comparison.
• Clear KPIs with target values and a traffic-light logic.

Analogue or digital? The difference

• Up-to-dateness: analogue is manual and often outdated – digital is real time from machines and ERP.
• Response: analogue by word of mouth – digital via rule-based escalation.
• Analysis: analogue is barely possible – digital with history and trends.

Which trends are shaping manufacturing?

Patrick Theobald, managing director at Peakboard, sees several trends shaping digital shop floor management. The IIoT provides the data foundation: according to an IDC survey, 74% of German companies wanted to start new IIoT projects, and almost half (46%) increased their IIoT budgets despite economic uncertainty. Added to this are AI for pattern recognition in production data and the connected worker, who is involved via mobile devices and dashboards.

How do I get started?

The entry works step by step: start with a pilot project on one line and build out from there. Our guide shows the approach in 10 steps. No-code solutions such as Peakboard's Apexboard make it possible to start without programming skills. What matters when choosing the software – features and costs is covered in the related guide. What matters in the end stays the same: the technology supports leadership – it cannot replace it.