The press counts its own output. Read it there, not in the shift report.
Injection moulding runs fast enough that a slow cycle only shows up in the monthly figures, by which point it has run thousands of times. VZIAM MES reads the count from the press, compares it with the nominal rate for that article on that machine, and books each reject to its order and its reason.
The losses are small, frequent, and invisible at the reporting interval.
Nothing about a moulding shop hides a breakdown. What it hides is drift, and drift is where the capacity goes.
Scrap with nothing attached
Rejects counted at the end of a run cannot be attributed to the machine, the order or the material lot that produced them. The total is right and the analysis is impossible, so the same defect comes back on the next campaign.
Changeovers that are never timed
A mould change is measured, where it is measured at all, from the moment somebody remembered to write down a start time. Two teams’ changeovers are then compared on figures neither of them trusts.
Cycle drift under the threshold
A press running a few tenths of a second slow is still running. It raises no alarm, produces no downtime declaration and appears nowhere, but across a shift it is a quantity of parts that were not made.
Read the press, book the rejects, time the changeovers.
Nothing here asks an operator to time anything. Each step is a part of VZIAM MES, and its page is linked under it.
- 01
Read output from the controller
Good parts come from the press’s own counter, which VZIAM MES never resets: production is the difference between two readings. Performance compares that output with the nominal rate set for the article on that machine, so a slow cycle is a measured gap rather than an impression somebody had on nights.
How OEE is calculated on the server - 02
Book each reject to a reason and its order
Rejects are declared at the cockpit against a reason from your own defect tree, and against the work order and its finished lot, whose record also holds the material lots consumed. A Pareto by reason, machine or period is then a filter, and a recurring defect stops being anecdotal.
Rejects and checks at the machine - 03
Time the mould change from the machine
A changeover is a stop timed by the controller and qualified with its reason, typed as planned or not, with a target duration. The cockpit shows the overrun as it happens, and changeovers can be compared between shifts without anyone holding a stopwatch.
How a stop is timed and qualified - 04
Count the jams nobody declares
A part stuck in the tool and cleared by hand in twenty seconds is counted from the controller as a micro-stop, under a threshold set for each press, and booked against performance rather than lost in it.
Micro-stops, counted
Four people, one record of the press.
The setter, quality, methods and the supervisor work from the same counts and stops, read from the press rather than reported from it.
The mould change, timed by the press.
The changeover is a stop the controller times, qualified with its reason and compared with its target. The cockpit shows the overrun while it is happening, not in Monday’s review.
How a stop is timed and qualified- Changeover
- Stop with a reason
- Target
- Per reason or press
- Overrun
- Shown as it happens
Every reject has a reason and an order.
Rejects are declared on a numpad with a reason from your defect tree. A reject without a reason is refused, and the Pareto by reason, press or period comes from the same records as the OEE.
Rejects and checks at the machine- Reason
- From your defect tree
- Order and lot
- Attached at declaration
- No reason
- Refused
A nominal rate per article, per press.
The same cover moulded on two presses is measured against two rates. Performance is the gap between what the counter says and what that rate would have produced, so a slow cycle is a figure rather than a feeling.
OEE calculated on the server- Nominal rate
- Article and press
- Counter
- Never reset
- Slow cycle
- A performance gap
Short jams, counted apart.
A part cleared by hand in twenty seconds is a micro-stop: counted from the controller, booked against performance and kept out of the breakdown Pareto, so the maintenance team is not sent after a mould that only sticks.
Micro-stops, counted- Threshold
- Set per press
- Booked to
- Performance
- Breakdown Pareto
- Left out
What gets connected in a moulding shop.
- Press controllers
- OPC UA, MQTT
- Older presses
- Modbus, S7, via a gateway
- Production
- From the counter, never reset
- Performance
- Against nominal, per article
- Rejects
- Reason from your defect tree
- Changeover
- Stop with a reason and target
- Micro-stops
- Threshold per press
Frequently asked questions.
Bring your press makes and controllers, and ask the engineers how each would connect.
Book a callNo. It works from counts and machine states, compared with the nominal rate set for each article on each machine. Process values such as temperatures can be historised from the controller, but the OEE calculation does not depend on them.
Any that publishes over OPC UA or MQTT, directly. Presses on Modbus, Siemens S7 or a proprietary protocol connect through a gateway on the line (Node-RED or a DAS box). The controller make and model are the first things we ask for.
Through its order. Each reject is booked against the work order, and the material lots that order consumed are recorded against its finished lot, so the material behind a defect is one step away from the reject.
They are set per article and per machine, so the same part moulded on two different presses is measured against two different rates. Changing a rate is an administrator’s action, not an operator’s.
Yes, by the roles you authorise. Each correction is recalculated on the server and audited, with what it replaced, who made it and when kept on file.
Other industries we work in.
Plan the change before it reaches the line.
Request a demo and an engineer looks at how your production runs today, shows how the software would fit around it, and where a pilot on one line would start.
01Pick a time
Choose a slot in the calendar, and note what you make and what reads your machines today.
02Screen shared with an engineer
A video call with someone who builds the software, in English or French.
03What would connect
For each machine, its path: native (OPC UA, MQTT or HTTP push), through a gateway, or nothing to build.