How to know mid-shift whether you will hit target

You know during the shift whether you will hit target by comparing the good parts made so far with the goal prorated to this moment, then projecting the hours left at the pace the machine holds now. Convert any gap into minutes of running at the ideal cycle time. When that number is larger than the stops you still expect this shift, removing stops can’t close it, and you add time or move work now.

This guide is for supervisors, plant managers and line leads who own a shift’s output. It works one hypothetical lathe shift through each calculation and ends with a mid-shift check and what to do when the shift is behind.

What is a shift goal?#

The goal is built from the machine’s own numbers, so a normal shift can reach it. The shift goal glossary entry shows how IoTFlows derives it from the same inputs.

Planned production time is the shift less its scheduled breaks. Expected downtime is the stopped time this machine averages on this operation: tool changes, gauging, waiting for material. Planned time comes from your shift definitions, and expected downtime from the machine’s history.

The ideal cycle time decides the rest. An ideal set 10% too fast raises the goal by 11% on a shift where nothing changed, so check it first: how to set ideal cycle time covers who owns it and how to time it.

A shift goal is not takt time. Takt time is available production time divided by customer demand.^[2] Use takt to check whether the machine’s capacity covers demand. Use the shift goal to judge whether this shift ran as well as this machine normally runs.

Why the end-of-shift count is too late#

At 2:30 PM the count is a record, not a decision. A shift that finishes 30 parts short has no time left to make them, and the stops behind the shortfall happened hours ago.

The same 30 parts at 10:00 AM are 22.5 minutes of running at the ideal cycle, with four planned hours still ahead. That is a problem a supervisor can solve before lunch.

Comparing planned with actual output at the machine is an old lean practice. The Lean Enterprise Institute describes andon displays that show “the number of units planned versus actual output.”^[1] An automatic count changes the practice: when a sensor or a counter records every part, the comparison is live every minute instead of written on a sheet once an hour.

Compare the count with the goal to now#

At 10:00 AM the lathe has used 240 of its 480 planned minutes, so the goal to now is 560 × 240 ÷ 480 = 280 parts. The count reads 250. The shift is 30 parts behind, at 89.3% of the goal to now.

Compare with the goal to now, not with the full-shift goal. The same 250 parts are 44.6% of the shift goal, a number that climbs all day whether the machine is on pace or not.

Treat a gap smaller than the normal swing between hours as noise. This lathe made 66, 71 and 61 parts in its first three hours, a spread of 10. A gap of 5 parts says nothing, and a gap of 30 says a lot.

Project the end of the shift#

The goal to now says where you are. A projection says where you will land if nothing changes.

The answer depends on the pace you project with. The lathe has 250 parts and four planned hours left:

Two rows matter most. The goal-pace row shows that a shift running to plan from here still finishes 30 short: a gap never closes on its own.

The ideal row is the ceiling. When even the ceiling falls short of the goal, no effort on this machine saves the shift, and you go straight to the decision guide.

Default to the last hour’s pace until you know the cause of the shortfall is fixed. On this lathe it is also the lowest realistic pace, and a supervisor who acts on it early loses less than one who waits for the average to recover.

Turn the gap into minutes of running#

Parts behind are hard to act on. Minutes are not: a supervisor can find 20 minutes on the floor, and can’t find “30 parts”.

The lathe needs (560 − 250) ÷ 4 = 77.5 parts an hour for the rest of the shift, against a goal pace of 70 and an ideal ceiling of 80. The rate is possible, but it leaves almost no room to stop.

Compare the stop budget with the stops you still expect, then read the status from the table.

The lathe sits in the middle row. It makes 560 only if 22.5 minutes of the stops it usually has don’t happen.

Find the hour that lost the parts#

The cumulative count tells you whether the shift is behind. Hourly bars tell you when it fell behind, and the when leads to the cause.

The lathe’s hourly goal is 70. Its hours ran 66, 71, 61 and 52: 4 short, 1 over, 9 short and 18 short, which adds to the 30. The last hour lost 18 parts, or 13.5 minutes of running at 45 seconds.

Open the stop record for that hour next.

• A stop explains it, for example a 12-minute insert change that cost 16 of the 18 parts. Decide whether that stop will come back before the shift ends.
• No stop explains it. The loss is slow cycles or stops too short to log, and micro-stops covers how to find them.

The latest hour carries the most weight. A bad first hour that recovered is history; a bad last hour is the pace you are projecting with. If stops aren’t recorded with reasons yet, tracking machine downtime comes first, because the hourly bars find the hour and the stop record names the cause.

Run the mid-shift check#

1. Read the count and the goal to now

   Take good parts only. Scrap counted as output makes a shift look closer to goal than it is.

2. Convert the gap into minutes

   Multiply the parts behind by the ideal cycle time. For example, 30 parts at 45 seconds is 22.5 minutes.

3. Project at the last hour’s pace

   If the projection reaches the goal, stop here and check again next hour.

4. Work out the stop budget

   Subtract the running time the remaining parts need from the planned time left, and compare the result with the stops you still expect.

5. Find the worst recent hour

   Match it with the stop record to name the cause.

6. Choose one action and write it down

   Pick from the decision guide below and note what you changed, so the end-of-shift review can see whether it worked.

Each role checks at its own interval:

Timing matters because the same gap gets harder to close as the shift runs out. At 10:00 AM the lathe’s 22.5-minute gap faces 30 minutes of expected stops still ahead, so removing stops can close it. At 1:30 PM, with one planned hour left, only 7.5 minutes of stops are expected, and the gap needs added time or another machine.

If your area paces work in pitch, the time needed to make one container of product, each container is a natural checkpoint. Pitch is takt time × pack-out quantity, so a 1-minute takt and 20 pieces a container give a pitch of 20 minutes.^[3]

Track the shift goal automatically#

Production monitoring in IoTFlows counts every part from a SenseAi or a BeamTracker on the machine, with no PLC. The calculated goal is the shift duration less the expected downtime, the historical average for that operation and machine, divided by the ideal cycle time. Shift Production shows good parts against that goal, the pace as Ideal, Goal and Actual, and one bar per clock hour, amber when the hour fell short.

Operator View shows the count at the machine, with the shortfall marked Behind. Hilco Vision’s production rose more than 20% once the team analyzed and adjusted in real time instead of waiting days for reports.

Before IoTFlows, we'd set a target and hope we hit it. Now we know by mid-afternoon exactly where we'll land and whether we need to adjust. That shift from hoping to knowing is everything. It turns production management from firefighting into orchestration.

Decide what to do when the shift is behind#

Pick the action from the stop budget and the cause, not from how far behind the shift looks.

• Remove a stop that is still ahead. Choose this when the stop budget is above zero but below the stops expected. For example, stage the inserts and the next bar at the lathe before the noon tool change, so a 16-minute stop takes 4 and wins back 16 parts.
• Fix the loss in the worst hour while it is still happening. Choose this when the last hour’s pace is below the shift average, as on the lathe at 52 an hour against 62.5.
• Add planned time. Choose this when the gap in minutes is larger than the stops still expected. Running the lathe through a staggered 30-minute lunch adds 40 parts at the ideal cycle, more than the 30 it is behind.
• Move the remaining quantity to another machine that runs the same operation. Choose this when the stop budget is zero or below and a second machine has free time.
• Tell planning when the gap is larger than anything the shift can add. The shortfall becomes a schedule input, and scheduling on real run rates shows how to plan the next run on what the machine really makes.

You don’t need to act on a gap smaller than the normal swing between hours. Chasing a 5-part gap pulls people off work that matters more.