Station

Context:

Stations are the core monitored assets (lines, cells, machines); station groups organise them for scalable management.

Importance:

Station definitions are essential for linking real-time signals, aggregating performance at group/plant scale, and filtering all dashboard and analytics views. Assigning to groups enables line-/area-level insights.

Setup:

Name each station, assign it to a Station Group, and select its shift pattern. Optionally, set station-specific idle time values for more detailed loss analyses.

STATION SETTINGS

Code

Mandatory, can’t be edited once the station is saved.

Name

Mandatory, can be edited if required.

ASSIGNMENT

Group

Stations are grouped for ease of administration and to be able to share certain common configurations, such as shift patterns.

Shift Pattern

Shift patterns are a collection of individual shifts across 1 full week. These can be assigned to either a station group, or individual shifts. If not set at station level, Station Group shift pattern will be used.

PRODUCTION

Performance Mode

The performance mode of a station is used as a fallback when the scheduled SKU has not be configured with an explicit performance mode.

Units per Minute/Hour

The number of units that should be produced in 1 minute or hour.

Cycle Time

The number of seconds each unit takes to produce. This should be set to the average Cycle Time of the station. Busroot will use this to calculate estimates and downtime (this will only be used if there is no Cycle Time Override set for a schedule or the SKU has no Cycle Time set).

Minimum Cycle Time

It may be required to filter out repeated production complete signals. This can be due to common situations such as multiple pulses being sent for 1 unit of production.

The minimum cycle time ensure that multiple production complete signals received within this time are only ever counted once.

PRODUCTIVE STATUS

Productive Hold on Time (mins)

For stations set to Utilisation Monitoring. This controls the length of time a station is considered active after a productive signal. Each time a new signal is received the hold on time will restart.

DOWNTIME

Downtime Detection Mode

Busroot will report downtime for a station using either Utilisation or Production Cycle data.

Idle Cost per Station Minute

As well as a SKU value, it is possible to set an idle cost for each station. This is used to calculate the lost production cost where a SKU value is not defined, therefore the cost is just based on the duration the station is idle. Such as scheduling losses, planned non-production losses and downtime losses where the SKU value is not set.

Utilisation Downtime Threshold (mins)

Mandatory, if Downtime Detection Mode is set to Utilisation Monitoring. This should be set to the minimum period of inactivity before Busroot will start recording downtime.

Downtime Loss Cost

The number of units lost due to downtime, across a given time frame, is the downtime duration divided by the SKU's target cycle time. Another way to think of this is the ideal production quantity minus the target production quantity.

This lost quantity is then multiplied by the SKU value. If the SKU value is not set, the downtime duration will be multiplied by the station idle cost as a fallback.

ENERGY

SPEED

Line Speed Target

The speed signal is used to measure a process speed as a continuous rate, rather than discreet units of production.

For stations set to Productive Status Mode > Line Speed. A target speed can be set, it will appear on the Line Speed Chart as a dashed line. If the current Line Speed of the station drops below 80% of this target, a period of downtime will be added with issue type 'Slow'.

Speed Scale and Offset

For a station that is providing a speed signal. The scale on the Line Speed Chart can be set to match the units being measured. So for example if a station is currently giving a speed signal of bottles/min this can be changed to bottles/hour by setting the scale to 60.

Often we want the speed to correlate to a specific unit of measurement. For each, we may measure speed as a percentage of maximum speed (i.e. 0 to 1 = off to full-speed), but want it represented in Busroot as meters per second.

In this case, if we know that full speed for this process is 20m/s, we can scale the speed so that a signal of 1 (full-speed) is scaled to a value of 20m/s. A signal of 0.25 would be scaled to value of 5m/s, and so on.

Line Speed Stopped Threshold

Mandatory, if Productive Status Mode is set to Line Speed. Anything below this speed Busroot will record as downtime.

Speed to Production Ratio

In Busroot, we have the option to be able to convert a continuous rate into discreet units of production.

This allows for any necessary calibration of a station's speed signal. This can be set as a - or + value, to align the reading on the Line Speed Chart with what’s happening on the shop floor.

Speed Loss Cost

The number of units lost due to slow production is the target production quantity, minus good and bad production. This lost quantity is then multiplied by the SKU value.

Ideal Production Quantity

The number of units that should be produced in a given time frame, without any time for downtime subtracted.

Target Production Quantity

The number of unit that should be produced in a given time frame, with the duration of downtime subtracted.

FEATURE FLAGS

VISIBILITY

ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT STATION SETTINGS

Quality Loss Cost

This is simply the quantity of bad production multiplied by the SKU value.

Allow Manual Production

This enables the production entry module on the tablet, allowing operators to count production manually.

A side effect of this being enabled is that the station will never be considered as having "No Connection" as this setting is most commonly used with stations that are not connected to sensor data.

Allow Interruption Mode

Enable the Interruption tool. The tool provides an intuitive way to capture downtime from human-lead manufacturing processes where digital data capture is impossible.

Allow Schedule Cut Short

This enables a button in Schedule Management, to allow a schedule to be ended early. The remaining quantity will be added to a new schedule with the same Work Order Ref.

It is intended for stations that may need to switch between schedules depending on priority. If ‘Cut Short’ is clicked the current schedule will be ended and a new schedule created, with the same work order reference and with the remaining quantity of the original schedule.

Allow Ad Hoc Schedules

This allows operators with tablets to start new schedules directly from the tablet. The Ad-Hoc schedule created will only need a SKU to be selected to start. The schedule will be continuous and only end when stopped by the operator on the tablet.