Manufacturing operations
Factory Automation: Production Workflow, Not Industrial Robotics
ODOOVATIONS automates factory business processes in software: production orders and job cards, material issue and movement, quality checks and approvals, maintenance scheduling, shop-floor data capture and live production reporting. This is process and information automation. We do not design, install or program industrial control hardware such as PLCs, SCADA systems or robotics — where a project needs that, it needs a specialist automation engineering firm alongside us.
Who this is for
Manufacturers whose production planning lives on a whiteboard, whose job cards are paper, and whose management finds out about a shortage when the line stops.
What we mean by factory automation
The phrase covers two very different things. One is industrial control: PLCs, sensors, drives, SCADA, robotic cells — electrical and controls engineering. The other is production process automation: knowing what to make, issuing materials, tracking progress, recording quality, and reporting output. We do the second. Being clear about that is more useful to you than claiming both, and if your project genuinely needs controls engineering we will say so at the first meeting.
From order to finished goods
- Sales / forecast
- Production plan
- Material check
- Job card issued
- Operations recorded
- Quality check
- Finished goods
- Costing
Planning and job cards
- Production orders raised from confirmed orders or forecast
- Bill of materials and routing per product, including multi-level assemblies
- Material availability checked before release, not after the line stops
- Job cards issued to work centres with quantities and specifications
- Work centre scheduling and load visibility
- Subcontracting operations tracked as part of the same order
On the shop floor
- Operators record start, pause, completion and quantity at a terminal or scanner
- Barcode or QR identification of materials, jobs and finished goods
- Material issue against the job, so consumption is recorded where it happens
- Rejection and rework recorded with reason codes
- Downtime captured with a cause, so the pattern becomes visible
Quality and maintenance
- Quality checkpoints at defined stages with pass, fail or hold
- Non-conformance recorded and routed for decision
- Certificates and inspection records kept against the batch
- Preventive maintenance scheduled by date or by machine hours
- Breakdown logging and maintenance history per machine
What management finally gets to see
- Live production status against plan
- Output by shift, line, work centre and operator
- Rejection and rework rates with reasons
- Actual versus standard material consumption
- Actual production cost per order, including labour and overhead
- Downtime analysis by cause
Machine data, where it is available
Some machines expose counters or status over a network or a controller interface; many older machines expose nothing at all. Where an interface genuinely exists and the vendor documents it, we can read that data into production reporting. We confirm what each machine actually offers before putting it in scope — machine integration is the part of a factory project most often promised and least often verified.
We do not supply, install or program PLCs, SCADA systems, industrial sensors or robotics, and we do not carry out electrical or controls engineering. Where a project needs that, we work alongside your automation contractor rather than claiming the capability ourselves.
Questions
No. We automate production processes in software — planning, job cards, materials, quality, maintenance and reporting. Controls engineering and robotics are a different discipline requiring different licensing and expertise, and we will point you to a specialist rather than attempt it.
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