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Service 01 · Industrial Data & IT/OT
Making machine data usable — even from plants that don’t want to give any up
Most manufacturers have data and still no KPIs. Between the controller and a number that anyone believes lie a protocol, a network gateway, a time series and a calculation — and at every one of these points, meaning gets lost.
Where it usually gets stuck
- The machine has no interface.A 1998 controller hands out counter readings over Modbus and nothing else. That’s enough for a full OEE — if the calculation sits next to the machine rather than inside it.
- Nobody trusts the numbers.Averaged counters, factors added instead of multiplied, a window that swallows start-up phases. A KPI that can’t be recomputed is rightly not believed on the shop floor.
- The history is missing.Values are overwritten instead of appended. That makes every question about the state of the week before last unanswerable — and every model impossible.
How I work
- Connect what’s there.Read-only, without intervening in the automation. OPC UA by subscription, Modbus by polling, both via an edge device that buffers during network outages.
- Fix the meaning.Every value gets an identifier, not just a name. Only then can it later be used without follow-up questions — by other software, by a model, by a customer.
- Store by appending.A time-series database instead of overwriting. Every state stays retrievable, and the KPIs are derived from it rather than kept in a side spreadsheet.
- Calculate KPIs to the standard.OEE per ISO 22400, time-weighted, with a named window — and every number traceable to the individual measurement.
What this looks like in operation
Five plants, real OPC UA, a Modbus machine from 1998, a historian with millions of rows and a network diagram that labels every protocol with cycle and volume: the data paths and the KPIs per unit.
Frequently asked questions
Do we have to intervene in the controller for this?
No. The connection is read-only at first. Where write-back is wanted later, the set of writable points is defined in advance rather than decided at runtime.
What about old machines without OPC UA?
They’re the more interesting case. Via Modbus or a serial converter you get counter readings, motor current and fault codes; a connector alongside calculates the KPIs. The public reference does exactly that on a band saw from 1998.
How long does a first connection take?
For one plant I allow around two weeks to the first reliable number — connection, two weeks of history, and from that the loss calculation.
Getting started
- One plant, two weeks, one number you can rely on.Connect what’s there. Two weeks of measuring instead of guessing. Afterwards, whether the expansion pays off is stated in euros — not in a presentation.