Your Shop Floor Data Collection Agent Counts Every Part as It Runs
What it takes off your plate
The AgentWorks Shop Floor Data Collection Agent captures production counts, downtime and scrap while the shift runs, so your operators stop transcribing paper travelers and your supervisors stop arguing about yesterday's numbers, and both spend their time on the parts and the customer accounts waiting for them.
Here is data collection in many plants. Operators write counts on a paper traveler. At the end of the shift someone types them into the ERP, sometimes from a traveler that got wet or lost. When a machine stops, the downtime note says "machine broke" or "waiting," which tells maintenance nothing. Scrap gets written down in batches, if at all. At the morning production meeting, the plant manager, the supervisors and maintenance spend the first half of the meeting disputing the numbers instead of deciding what to fix. Meanwhile customer service does not know that the line running a key customer's order was down half the night.
What the Shop Floor Data Collection Agent does, step by step
The Shop Floor Data Collection Agent starts with the questions that turn a stoppage into a usable record.
- It asks why a machine stopped. When a machine goes idle, it prompts the operator on the floor terminal or by message to pick a downtime reason code from the plant's list, while the reason is fresh.
- It chases the root cause. When the reason is a breakdown, it asks maintenance for the specific cause once the repair is done, and follows up until the ticket has one.
- It asks operators to verify. At the end of each run or shift, it shows the operator the count and scrap it recorded and asks them to confirm or correct. Operators verify instead of transcribe.
- It alerts supervisors. When scrap on a job climbs or a stoppage runs long, it messages the shift supervisor right away.
- It tells customer service. When downtime puts a customer's order at risk, it notifies the rep who owns that customer account.
- It captures the data. It reads part counts and cycle signals from machine controllers, the MES or operator terminals, and records downtime events and scrap by reason code against the job.
- It prepares the morning report. Before the meeting, it sends the plant manager and supervisors the counts, downtime by reason and scrap by code for each line and shift.
It works with the machine connections, MES, ERP and messaging your plant already uses. Operators keep the terminals they know.
Where the work is recorded
Every prompt, reply, alert and notification is logged. Messages to customer service about an at-risk order land on the customer account and the order in your CRM, so a rep who takes the customer's call sees what the plant already reported.
The production data lives in the MES and posts to the ERP against each job: good counts, scrap by code, downtime by reason and the operator's confirmation. The next morning the plant manager opens a report that nobody had to build and the room trusts, with the open questions (an unconfirmed count, a downtime event still waiting on a root cause) listed at the bottom. An agent that could not record its results would be a chatbot. This one gives the meeting one set of numbers.
What your people do instead
Your operators stay on the machine, running parts and catching quality problems, not copying numbers. Your supervisors coach the crew and solve the problems the data points to. Your maintenance team works the repeat causes the reason codes reveal. Your customer service reps keep customer accounts informed with facts from the floor.
The decisions stay with people. Which downtime cause to attack first, whether to add a shift or move a job to another line, and what to tell a customer about a late order are judgments for the plant manager and the team. The Shop Floor Data Collection Agent brings those decisions forward with the numbers settled, and keeps the prompts, confirmations and records moving.
Good floor data makes the schedule honest. See why manual production scheduling fails and how plants resolve shop floor chaos in real time.
One next step
Find out whether floor data is the workflow to hand over first. The free Manufacturing Industry Assessment shows which workflow an agent should take first in your plant. To see every agent built for manufacturers, including the AgentWorks Shop Floor Data Collection Agent, visit the Manufacturing industry page.
See where the Shop Floor Data Collection Agent would start in your manufacturing business.
I'm Diane, the Manufacturing ambassador here. The free Industry Assessment reads your website and asks how calls, follow-ups and records happen today, then shows the first workflow worth handing to an agent like this one — and what your team gets back. Leave your email and I'll send the link.
Diane replies from manufacturing@agentworksstudio.com. One email with the link — no list, no drip, unless you ask for the weekly letter. Or go straight there →