Shop-floor Capture

Shop-floor Capture is an optional module of InvoiceFlash that lets a machine report by itself what it is doing, and InvoiceFlash turns it into Manufacturing work reports, without anyone typing anything at the shop-floor terminal. It needs the Manufacturing module, whose work reports, steps and orders it uses.

What the machine sends

A machine, or the gateway that talks to its PLC, sends four kinds of event to an InvoiceFlash address, using that machine's key:

• Start: opens a work report on that machine's order and step. The order and the step become in progress.
• Cycle: adds good and defective parts to the open report. The report shows production live.
• Stop: closes the report (a pause) with the real hours. If the job is marked as finished, the step is also left as finished.
• Energy (kWh): charges consumption to the open report. With no open report, it is recorded as idle consumption.

From that data you get, automatically, the real hours per order and per step, the performance and defective parts in the Manufacturing reports, the stops per machine and the kWh per order and per unit.

How a machine is connected

A PLC with a Modbus TCP server (Siemens, Schneider, WAGO, Omron, Mitsubishi, or an Arduino/ESP32 with the Modbus library) or with OPC UA, and a Modbus energy meter such as the Eastron SDM230 or SDM630, on the same network. A gateway written in Python, running on a Raspberry Pi or a PC on that network, reads the signals every second, detects changes and sends the events to InvoiceFlash.

• If the network goes down, the gateway saves the events to a file and resends them when it is back. Each event carries an identifier, so a retry is never applied twice.
• A test mode simulates a machine that works and stops, with an energy meter, so you can see the whole circuit against InvoiceFlash before touching the PLC.
• It also accepts devices that cannot send JSON, using an ordinary form.

One key per machine

In Manufacturing > Machine captures you create one key for each Manufacturing machine. The key identifies the machine, which is why events do not carry its identifier.

• Operator: the user to whom that machine's work reports are charged. Their hourly cost counts towards the real cost of the order.
• Auto-start: if a cycle arrives with no open report, it opens one on the order that the planning has assigned to the machine.
• Allowed IP addresses: the key is only accepted from the IPs or ranges you list.
• The key is shown only once; only its fingerprint is kept in the database. If it is lost, it can be regenerated.

What happens with each event

• One open report per key at a time. If a start arrives with another order or step, it closes the previous report and opens the new one.
• A stop without finishing is a pause: the hours stay counted and the step stays in progress. Finishing the step is indicated explicitly, like pressing Finish at the shop-floor terminal.
• The events in a batch are applied in chronological order even if they arrive out of order, and with the time at which they happened.
• Situations that prevent an event from being applied (no open order, closed order, step already finished) are returned as ignored, not as an error, so the gateway does not retry them forever.
• Energy is not valued in euros: it is shown in kWh and kWh per unit.

Screens

• Manufacturing > Machine captures: the keys, with the machine, the operator, the last connection, the events of the last 24 hours and whether it is running. Create, edit, regenerate, enable or disable, and delete (the history is kept).
• Manufacturing > Captured production: by period and machine, each report with its order, operation, start and end, minutes, good and defective parts, kWh and kWh per unit, with totals; idle consumption per machine and the latest events with their result.

Captured reports also appear in Manufacturing > Work reports and feed planning and reports like any other.

Security

• The key travels in a header, never in the address, and HTTPS is recommended.
• IP addresses that fail with wrong keys several times in a row are blocked.
• Events dated more than 7 days ago or more than 5 minutes in the future are rejected.

Summary: what it includes

Complementary modules

• Manufacturing (required)
• Quality Control