Making production data usable across a factory

This solution draws on the BCT team’s hands-on experience. Scope and delivery arrangements are tailored to each project.

Solution Overview

We connect equipment readings and production records to support factory operations. Starting with one production line lets the team check data quality before extending coverage.

The Challenge

Questions to resolve before committing to scope:

Which equipment exposes usable data, and who owns access?
How are downtime and production counts defined?
What must remain available when connectivity is lost?

Delivery approach

Map the production workflow: Review sample records with operators and agree on data definitions and a pilot boundary.
Build and review a pilot: Connect an agreed data source to a dashboard; make missing or delayed readings visible during operator reviews.
Prepare operational handover: Test reconnect behaviour, document alert ownership and plan rollout line by line.

Inside the solution

From workflow to system design

Data ingestion
Operational dashboards
Recovery testing

Reference architecture for Data ingestion, Operational dashboards, Recovery testing. Design rationale and deliverables follow below. — Reference architecture showing the solution’s components and data flows. The implementation is adapted to each project’s requirements.

Delivery model

Application development, starting with a single-line pilot

Client decisions and discovery

The production owner defines downtime and output measures. Operators explain exceptions, while the equipment owner approves connectivity and access.

BCT implementation responsibilities

A BA interviews operators and maps sample records. The architect checks device protocols and failure modes. Engineers implement the ingestion flow; QA reconciles source records and tests disconnect and replay behaviour.

Review gates and scope boundaries

Review the pilot with the production owner before connecting further equipment. Agree acceptable data delay, maintenance windows and who responds to missing readings.

Key design decision

Buffer readings close to the equipment, then validate timestamps and deduplicate at ingestion. Keep rejected readings visible so a healthy-looking dashboard cannot hide missing source data.

Delivery artifacts

Agree these outputs during scoping, then review them alongside the acceptance checks below.

Source-to-field mapping and a pilot-line integration
Dashboard with data-freshness and missing-data states
Replay test report, alert ownership and an operator runbook

How to evaluate delivery

Reconcile dashboard totals with the source records.
Check how missing readings and network outages are reported.
Agree on a baseline for reporting effort before assessing improvement.