Plant Production Visibility Dashboard

Manufacturing · Case study

Client context

A mid-sized manufacturer running multiple production lines with shared materials and quality checkpoints. Plant leadership needed trustworthy shift visibility while ERP screens remained too heavy for floor use. Supervisors still closed shifts in spreadsheets; quality exceptions traveled by phone. Prior IT projects had stalled on boil-the-ocean MES scope. AVYRION was asked to ship a high-ROI visibility slice operators would actually use.

Business problem

Production status lived in tribal knowledge and end-of-shift spreadsheets. Quality holds were discovered late, materials shortages surprised planners, and leadership lacked a single pane for output versus plan. Every handoff reset context. The business problem was not missing ERP modules — it was missing operable visibility for the people running the lines.

The challenge

Deliver plant-floor visibility and exception workflows without replacing ERP or MES in phase one. Constraints included operator-friendly UX for shift work, partial connectivity to existing systems, clear ownership for quality holds, and a path to deeper modules later. Non-goals were full scheduling optimization and machine telemetry on every asset. Success meant fewer spreadsheet status cycles and faster quality exception triage — measured with plant leadership, not guessed from demos.

Technical solution

AVYRION shipped a production visibility layer: line-level output against plan, quality exception queues, and materials signals operators and managers could trust. Discovery mapped one plant’s highest-pain workflows with supervisors before UI work began. Prototypes were validated on the floor so screens survived real shift conditions. Integrations used available ERP and shop-floor exports with clear lag indicators when true real-time feeds were unavailable. After launch we tightened exception playbooks so the dashboard replaced spreadsheet archaeology instead of becoming another ignored screen.

Architecture

A React ops console reads curated production, quality, and materials state from PostgreSQL. Node.js ingest jobs normalize ERP and shop-floor exports into a single status model with explicit freshness timestamps. Role-based views separate operators, supervisors, and plant leadership. Hosted on AWS with CI deploys and searchable logs so IT can investigate sync gaps without chasing personal spreadsheets. The visibility core leaves a deliberate path to deeper MES-style modules without forcing a rip-and-replace.

Development process

1. AssessDocumented processes, data sources, and the highest-pain shift handoff gaps with plant supervisors.
2. PrototypeValidated workflows with operators and managers on the floor before full build.
3. BuildShipped reliable dashboards and exception queues that fit real plant conditions.
4. SupportStabilized adoption with training, freshness indicators, and iteration after the first production weeks.

Business outcomes

• About 40% less time spent assembling spreadsheet status for shift handoffs
• Roughly 25% faster triage on quality holds with clear ownership
• Plant leadership gained same-day visibility of output versus plan
• Clear path to expand lines and modules without replacing ERP

Delivery results

• Shift status moved out of end-of-day spreadsheets into a shared dashboard
• Quality exceptions gained clear owners and next actions
• Materials shortages surfaced earlier for planners
• Foundation ready for deeper plant modules without rewriting the core

“The dashboard did not try to replace our ERP — it finally gave supervisors a screen they could run a shift on.”

Documented by AVYRION Editorial Team