Why one-off integrations do not scale
The shop floor is a mix of new lines and decade-old machines, each with its own controller and its own data format. Connect them one cable at a time and every new asset becomes a fresh project, every change a re-integration.
The pilot works on one line. The roll-out across the plant is where it stalls.
Standardise the contract, not the machine
The fix is a common data contract between the plant and the enterprise. ISA-95, the standard for enterprise-to-control integration, defines the layers and the objects, the production schedule and the performance, that flow up and down.
With protocols like OPC UA and MQTT carrying the signal, a new machine maps to tags that already exist rather than a bespoke build each time.
Where the ERP closes the loop
Connection only pays off when real production, actual yields, scrap, and cycle times, flows back into planning on its own. On Hudace the shop-floor feed lands in the same platform as scheduling, inventory, and finance, so planned versus actual is continuous, not a month-end reconciliation.
Xenon AI reads across the machine streams to flag quality drift and anomalies, grounded in the same data the planners already use. A supervisor acts on the exception.
The numbers to watch
Set a baseline, then tie the programme to the measures the plant already tracks.
OEE
OEE % = Availability % x Performance % x Quality %. The single number that captures whether connected data is reaching real output.
Availability
Availability % = actual run time / planned production time. The loss bucket that unplanned stoppages hit first.
Schedule adherence
Share of jobs completed to plan. Rises when actual performance feeds scheduling automatically.
Data latency
Time from a shop-floor event to it being visible in the ERP. Lower latency means decisions on what is true now.
See connected manufacturing on Hudace
Talk to our team about bringing shop-floor data, scheduling, and inventory onto one AI-native platform.