Shop floor management – transparency and control directly on the production floor
Visual Planning® supports companies with digital shop floor management by transparently displaying production orders, statuses, tasks, key performance indicators and variances directly at the point of value creation. Up-to-date information from production and planning can be consolidated in digital planning boards and dashboards, enabling those responsible to identify disruptions at an early stage and coordinate measures in a targeted manner.
Shop floor management – also known as on-site production control or production control at the point of value creation – represents modern leadership in production.
With digital tools, real-time data and visual planning boards, you can achieve maximum transparency regarding processes, statuses and key performance indicators – directly on the shop floor, i.e. where production, assembly or machining takes place.
Whether in mass production, mechanical engineering or assembly – Visual shop floor management enables teams and managers to respond to deviations at an early stage, clearly assign responsibilities and implement continuous improvement (CIP) in a structured manner.
With digital solutions, you can combine traditional shop floor methods such as daily meetings, shift handover or deviation management using modern technology – mobile, clear and connected.
Get started now with a data-driven production control, where clarity, efficiency and teamwork are at the heart of everything we do.
Benefits & Vision
- Seamless communication at the point of value creation
Visualised and ready for discussion directly on the shop floor, without any disruption to the workflow. - Genuine transparency & real-time data – Shop floor management with Visual Planning
All relevant key figures, tasks and variances are visible at a glance. - Cross-platform control
Whether it’s a digital board, a tablet or a production monitor – centrally controlled, flexible to use.
Functional features & visualisation tools
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Digital shop floor board | Real-time control with key performance indicators, actions, traffic-light status and an agenda for shop floor rounds |
| Colour coding & traffic light system | Quick visual feedback on status (e.g. green = on schedule, red = fault) |
| Dashboards & KPI displays | Display of OEE, scrap rate, lead times, shift productivity and more. |
| Live data & updates | Automatic updates from sensors, ERP or MES systems to ensure information is always up to date |
| Shop floor meetings (on-site routines) | Structured meetings directly on the board — shift handover, problem-solving discussions, action tracking |
Benefits & Effects
- Rapid detection of deviations and faults
- Transparent management and collaboration across all levels
- Promoting a culture of continuous improvement (CIP) and employee participation
- Visual guidance & decision-making at the point of value creation
Frequently asked questions about digital shop floor management
What is shop floor management?
Shop floor management encompasses the control, monitoring and optimisation of production processes directly on the shop floor. The aim is to make processes more transparent, reduce response times and coordinate production processes efficiently.
What tasks does shop floor management involve?
Shop floor management encompasses production control, resource planning, machine monitoring, task coordination, capacity management and the analysis of production metrics and processes.
Why is digital shop floor management important?
Digital shop floor management improves transparency, responsiveness and process reliability in production. Companies can coordinate production processes centrally and respond more quickly to disruptions or bottlenecks.
How does digital shop floor management work?
Digital shop floor management enables production orders, machines, staff and processes to be monitored and controlled centrally. Changes and status information are updated in real time.
What are the benefits of digital shop floor management?
Digital shop floor management reduces the communication burden, improves the overview of production and increases resource utilisation. At the same time, downtime and planning errors can be significantly reduced.
Why is Excel often no longer sufficient for shop floor management?
Excel is of limited use for complex production and shop floor processes. A lack of real-time data, manual data entry and confusing spreadsheets make efficient production control difficult.
What are the disadvantages of using Excel for shop floor management?
Excel-based production control is often prone to errors and time-consuming. Changes have to be made manually and can quickly lead to version conflicts or a lack of transparency.
How does digital shop floor management improve the overview of production?
All production orders, machines, capacities and status updates are displayed centrally. This gives production managers a better overview of ongoing processes.
How can production bottlenecks be identified at an early stage?
Real-time overviews and centralised production data enable bottlenecks relating to machinery, resources or capacity to be identified at an early stage and managed more effectively.
How does Shopfloor Management support production control?
Production processes can be monitored centrally and flexibly adjusted. This enables workflows to be coordinated efficiently and production targets to be met more effectively.
How does digital shop floor management help with last-minute changes?
Changes to production, machine breakdowns or changes in priority can be flexibly adjusted in real time. This ensures that production remains responsive and transparent.
How does digital shop floor management improve communication?
All relevant production information is available in one central location. This improves coordination, transparency and collaboration between production, planning and management.
How does digital shop floor management reduce downtime?
Machine statuses, maintenance tasks and production processes can be monitored centrally. This enables problems to be identified more quickly and unplanned downtime to be reduced.
How does Shopfloor Management support machine planning?
Machine capacities and production orders can be planned and monitored centrally. This enables capacity utilisation to be optimised and bottlenecks to be avoided.
How does digital shop floor management support resource planning?
Staff, machinery and production resources can be efficiently coordinated and flexibly deployed. This improves capacity utilisation and planning reliability.
What is the difference between shop floor management and production planning?
Production planning organises production orders and capacities in advance. Shopfloor Management, on the other hand, manages the operational implementation directly on the shop floor and monitors ongoing processes in real time.
How does shop floor management support lean production?
Digital shop floor processes help to reduce waste, make workflows more transparent and continuously improve production processes.
Can digital shop floor management be used on mobile devices?
Yes, modern shop floor software can be used on the go via a tablet or smartphone. This gives production managers and staff access to up-to-date production data and status information at any time.
What are the benefits of cloud-based shop floor management?
Cloud-based solutions enable access to production and process data from any location. Changes are synchronised in real time and are immediately available to all parties involved.
For which businesses is digital shop floor management suitable?
Digital shop floor management is suitable for production companies, manufacturing businesses, mechanical engineering firms, industrial enterprises and companies with complex production and manufacturing processes.
How does digital shop floor management improve transparency?
All production data, machine statuses, capacities and processes are displayed centrally. This gives companies a better overview of ongoing manufacturing processes.
How does digital shop floor management reduce planning errors?
Centralised data management, real-time updates and transparent production overviews help to significantly reduce errors, communication problems and double-booking.
Related topics on shop floor management
Modern shop floor management requires transparency Production planning, to efficiently manage production orders, machines and production capacities in real time.
With an integrated Machine planning Production lines, plant and technical resources can be utilised to their full potential, and bottlenecks can be identified at an early stage.
A digital Staff deployment planning helps companies to efficiently schedule shifts, skilled workers and production staff for manufacturing processes.
By linking to the Resource planning Employees, machinery and production capacities can be centrally coordinated and flexibly adapted.
Companies also benefit from a centralised Project planning, to manage production projects, maintenance and technical resources transparently.
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