The planner releases a manufacturing order on Monday and hears nothing more about it until Thursday, when someone asks where the order stands. Meanwhile, the operator has received a paper sheet, changed over on a verbal instruction and written down their times from memory at the end of the shift. A shop floor terminal exists to close this black hole between the release of a manufacturing order and its completion.
This article explains why you should computerise workstations, what an operator must be able to do there in three actions, what hardware to choose for a noisy, dirty environment, what data comes back from it, and the mistakes we see recurring from one project to the next.
Why computerise production workstations
A shop floor terminal is not one more screen: it is the entry point to an MES, the system that collects production execution data and feeds it back to the planner. Six gaps come up in workshops that do not have one.
No visibility on manufacturing order progress
Without feedback from the shop floor, the planner does not know whether an order is finished, how many parts have come out or whether there is a variance. Yet variances are common: you produce more than the quantity requested to use up a material, or less because an urgent job took the machine, and stock figures end up wrong.
A job sequence passed on by word of mouth
The operator receives a paper manufacturing order, sometimes a verbal instruction that contradicts it, and does their best. When a priority changes, they wait for instructions or produce outside the defined priorities.
Technical information nowhere to be found
Machine settings (temperature, pressure, speed), recipes, assembly instructions, diagrams: all of this lives in incomplete or out-of-date binders, and a setting recalled from memory sometimes costs an entire batch.
Times estimated after the event
Time per operation is used for cost prices, for the standard times of future plans and for monitoring run rates. Estimated at the end of the shift, it is reliable for none of these uses.
Quality that depends on attention in the moment
When output takes priority, the check gets skipped. One forgotten dimensional check on a machined part, and a whole batch has to be reworked. A shop floor terminal enforces the check at the planned step, blocks reporting in case of non-conformity and alerts a supervisor.
Wrong stock figures
Actual consumption never exactly matches the bill of materials. If a product needs 20 screws and the operator uses 22, stock will only know if someone has written it down. At the workstation, the variance is reported in one line, and a connected scale can replace manual entry of weights.
What an operator must be able to do in three actions
The success criterion fits in one sentence: operators must be able to report their work without taking their eyes off the machine for more than a few seconds. Three actions are enough.
- Identify themselves. A badge scan, not a username and password to type. On a shared workstation, each action asks for the badge again; on an individual workstation, the session stays open for the shift.
- Start and finish an operation. Scan the manufacturing order (or pick it from the list sorted by priority), press "Start", then "Finish" with good and scrapped quantities. The actual time is derived from this; nobody types it in.
- Flag a problem. A "Pause" or "Blocked" button with a reason chosen from a short list (waiting for material, breakdown, set-up, non-conformity). This is what turns clocking into usable information.
Everything else (sequence of manufacturing orders, bill of materials, production file, next check) must be readable without any action: information more than two screens away will not be looked at.
Hardware and ergonomics: gloves, noise, viewing distance
The workstation is designed for the operator as they actually work, not for a design office.
- Gloves. A standard capacitive touchscreen does not respond to thick gloves. You need a screen designed for this (resistive panel or "glove" mode), physical buttons or, simplest of all, a handheld scanner: scanning replaces touching.
- Noise. A beep cannot be heard next to a press. Confirmation must be visual: a background that changes colour, a green or red banner visible from a distance.
- Viewing distance. The operator reads the screen from their machine, two or three metres away: large fonts, high contrast, three pieces of information per screen at most (the current order, its status, the next order).
- The environment. Wood dust, chips, oil mist, humidity: an industrial PC or a tablet in a sealed case will last, an office computer will not. Plan for mounting at eye level.
- The reader. A wired handheld scanner for a fixed workstation, wireless for a long line, a phone for a pilot: see our guide to barcodes in production.
The data collected by a shop floor terminal
Every action by the operator produces a timestamped, signed record.
| Data | Triggered by | Who uses it, and for what |
|---|---|---|
| Start and end of operation | Start / Finish buttons | Planner: real-time progress of manufacturing orders, replanning |
| Actual time per operation and per operator | Calculated from the timestamps | Management control: cost prices; industrial engineering: standard times |
| Good and scrapped quantities | Entered at completion | Finished goods stock, scrap rate, OEE |
| Actual consumption | Variance entry or connected scale | Component stock, net requirements calculation |
| Pause and blocking reasons | Pause / Blocked button | Workshop manager: breakdowns, material waits, trade-offs |
| Quality check results | Checklist at the planned step | Quality: blocked non-conformities, traceability |
| Process measurements | Manual entry or sensor (temperature, weight) | Quality and batch traceability |
This data is only valuable when compared: actual time against standard time, quantity produced against quantity released, actual sequence against planned sequence. It is this comparison that feedsscheduling and time tracking and makes it possible to correct routings.
Classic mistakes with shop floor terminals
- Computerising wrong routings. If the operations in the routing do not match what the shop floor does, operators report anything or nothing. Cleaning up routings comes before deployment.
- Wanting everything reported. Ten fields when closing an operation, and the terminal becomes a chore. Three mandatory pieces of information, the rest optional.
- Stacking applications. One screen for clocking, one for quality, one for documents, one for stock: a single production screen must open all of these.
- Forgetting to finish operations. An order never closed stays "in progress" and distorts times: the workshop manager checks every morning for operations left open since the day before.
- Showing nothing in return. An operator who never sees what their reports are used for stops making them. A progress board visible on the shop floor changes everything.
- Deploying everywhere at once. One low-volume line, two volunteer operators, a few weeks of running in, then the rest.
What we see on the shop floor
On an industrial joinery project, for which we have described the roll-out of production workstations, some workstations forced operators to switch between four applications. The first benefit of the new workstation was not a new feature, but bringing what already existed onto a single screen: list of manufacturing orders by priority, production file in PDF, reporting, quality check.
The choice between single and multi-user is also made workstation by workstation: a cutting saw has one operator, a glazing line has a team leader and team members whose times are counted together. And the managers who succeed spend the first weeks on the shop floor, watching operators use the screen, not in front of dashboards.
Conclusion: what makes a shop floor terminal work
Computerising a production workstation means giving the planner feedback from the shop floor and giving the operator the information they need, in real time. Success depends less on technology than on three choices: accurate routings, three actions at most, and hardware designed for gloves, noise and viewing distance.
Planitrack is our answer for SMEs: operators scan their badge, the manufacturing order and the operation with a handheld scanner or a phone, and manufacturing order progress, actual times compared with standard times and workshop scheduling come back live, without machine sensors. It connects to your ERP or to your Excel files. Request a demo.