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Glossary

The terms you meet in IoTFlows, defined the way the product measures or configures them. Each entry links to the page that covers it in full.

Monitoring

Uptime

The share of a window a machine spent running: running time divided by running plus stopped time, as the sensor reports them. Uptime is availability, the first factor of OEE. Time the sensor did not report is unknown time and counts in neither term. See Uptime.

Downtime

The time the sensor reports a machine stopped. A stop counts in full whether or not an operator has classified it: a downtime category changes what the reports can say about the time, not how much of it there is. See Downtime, Classify a downtime event and Downtime tracking.

Unknown time

Any interval where the sensor was powered off or had lost its connection. It is the absence of data, not a machine state, so it counts toward neither uptime nor downtime and draws gray on the shift status bar. A lot of unknown time points to a power or connectivity problem, not a production one. See Unknown time.

Utilization

The same percentage as uptime under another label: Utilization on the Assets page KPI row and the Advanced Report, Uptime on a machine card. It comes from the sensor alone, so you can read it from the first day, before any part, operation or cycle time exists. See Uptime and Machine utilization.

Availability

The first OEE factor: how much of the time a machine ran. In IoTFlows, availability is uptime, running time divided by running plus stopped time, measured by the sensor with no operator input. Unknown time never counts, and stops of severity None leave the figure when you turn on Exclude None. See Uptime and OEE tracking.

Performance

The second OEE factor, shown as the parts gauge: parts made against what the machine could have made at its ideal cycle time in the same running time. It reads once an operation with an ideal cycle time is assigned to the machine. See Performance.

Quality

The third OEE factor: the share of parts made that were good. On Shift Production, the Quality column shows good parts as a percentage of everything counted, with the bad count beneath it. Scrap you log with a reason is a parallel number and does not come out of the good count. See Track production against shift goals and Log scrap.

OEE

Overall equipment effectiveness: availability × performance × quality. IoTFlows reports the factors on their own, availability as uptime, performance as the parts gauge and quality as good parts over everything counted, from the scrap your team logs, each with its own definition. The OEE goal is one target percentage your organization sets; every machine inherits it until you give that machine its own, and gauges draw green at or above it and red below. See Set OEE and utilization goals and OEE tracking.

First pass yield (FPY)

A step's good count divided by the good count of Step 1 in its cascading group, capped at 100%. Read down the line, it shows where parts are lost between operations, not only at the end. It reads green from 95% and amber from 80%. See FPY.

Cycle time

How long one cycle of an operation takes; a cycle can make more than one part. Three figures carry the name: the ideal cycle time you enter on the operation, the actual cycle time measured from detection events, and a target derived from the ideal and the machine's uptime goal, which colors the actual figure. See Cycle time and Set cycle times and downtime filters.

Shift goal

The number of parts an operation should finish in a shift, shown as Calculated Goal on Shift Production. IoTFlows derives it from the shift duration, the expected downtime and the ideal cycle time, so you move it by changing the cycle time, not by typing it. The Progress gauge fills toward it. See Where the goals come from.

Downtime category

A reason code an operator puts on a machine stop, for example Tool change. Each carries a severity, an optional color, a flag that forces a note, a planned or unplanned setting and an optional category type that groups related categories. One list serves the whole organization. See Manage downtime categories.

Severity

How much a stop of a given downtime category costs you: None, Low, Medium or High. You choose it when you create the category, and it decides the heading the category files under and its color. None marks stops that are nobody's loss, such as a mandated break. Machine events use their own Critical, Warning and Caution scale. See Set severity.

Planned downtime

A setting on a downtime category that marks every stop classified under it as scheduled, such as preventive maintenance or a planned changeover. The category's chip carries a calendar icon, and the picker filters to Planned or Unplanned. Planned is independent of severity: a scheduled rebuild can still be High. See Mark a category as planned.

Changeover

The time from the last part of one run to the first good part of the next, so it includes the swap, the adjustments and every trial part. The sensor records a changeover as a stop like any other: classify it with its own reason so it gets its own bar in the Pareto chart, and set a Machine Down alert threshold above your normal changeover. See Classify a downtime event and Measure changeover time.

Auto-classification

A rule that puts a downtime category on a stop without anyone opening the classify dialog. Four rules cover short pauses, the start and end of a shift, a shift with no production at all, and scheduled breaks. Each applies to every machine in the organization and is enabled on its own. See Classify downtime automatically.

Pareto chart

A bar chart that ranks downtime reasons by the time they cost, longest first, with a line for the cumulative percentage, so you can read how many reasons make up most of the loss. The Downtimes report draws it as Downtimes by Category over the window you select. See Read the Pareto chart.

Status colors

The colors a machine's status pill, card border and list row take: green while running or briefly stopped, orange past the orange threshold (one minute by default), red past the red threshold (five minutes by default), and dark red once the stop is classified. The thresholds are set for the whole organization and never change a number. See Set status colors and downtime thresholds.

Operator View

A display mode for one machine's page, built for the person running it: larger tap targets, no secondary navigation, and four tabs in place of the analytics, Part Count, All Downtime, Jobs and Notes. Any signed-in user turns it on from the profile menu. See Use Operator View on the shop floor.

Operator station

A browser IoTFlows has tied to one machine, so whoever signs in on it lands on that machine's page. An Owner or Administrator pairs the device in Organization Settings, and each sign-in and sign-out clocks the operator in and out. Use it for a shared tablet that stays at the machine. See Set up a dedicated operator station.

Machine health

RMS velocity

The root mean square of the vibration signal: the machine's overall vibration energy, or the signal's effective amplitude. The Health tab charts it as RMS Velocity for the X, Y and Z axes and the combined XYZ. It rises with unbalance, misalignment, looseness and general wear. See Health metrics.

Peak acceleration

The largest instantaneous amplitude in the measurement window, charted on the Health tab as Peak Acceleration for each axis and the combined XYZ. It rises with bearing defects, gear tooth damage, cavitation and impacts. Divide it by the RMS and you get the crest factor. See Health metrics.

Crest factor

The signal's peak divided by its RMS. Impacts raise the peak without raising the RMS much, so the ratio climbs on bearing spalling, cracked gear teeth, looseness and motor electrical faults. See Health metrics.

Kurtosis

How peaked the vibration signal's amplitude distribution is. Random vibration sits near 3; early bearing damage, impacting looseness, intermittent contact and rubbing push it higher. Kurtosis is one of the 14 metric trend charts on the Health tab. See The 14 metric trend charts.

Envelope kurtosis

The kurtosis of the high-frequency envelope of the vibration signal, and the most sensitive bearing indicator on the Health tab. It rises with race spalling, ball or roller defects, cage damage and lubrication breakdown, and it is charted for each axis and the combined XYZ. See Health metrics.

FFT spectrum

A fast Fourier transform splits a vibration signal into the frequencies it contains, so a chart of amplitude against frequency shows which rotations and impacts produce the vibration. The Health tab draws four spectra, XYZ, X, Y and Z, for the moment you select. Use it to confirm which fault, not whether there is one. See The FFT spectrum.

Harmonics

Whole-number multiples of the machine's running speed, labeled 1X through 6X. IoTFlows derives the RPM from the vibration itself and draws the markers on the spectrum. A peak on 1X points to imbalance, on 2X to misalignment, and across several harmonics to looseness. See Harmonics and RPM.

Baseline profile

The reference IoTFlows scores a machine's vibration against, chosen per machine on the Health tab. Every machine starts on Dynamic Baseline, which scores the machine against its own normal. The alternatives are the four ISO 10816 / 20816 classes and eight machine-type profiles, 13 in all. See Choose a baseline profile.

ISO 10816

The international standard for judging machine vibration severity, republished as ISO 20816. It sorts machines into classes by power and by how rigid the foundation is, from Class I, small machines up to 15 kW, to Class IV, large machines on flexible foundations. IoTFlows offers the four classes as baseline profiles. See Choose a baseline profile.

Health score

A number from 0 to 100 that summarizes a machine's vibration against its baseline profile. Read the trend rather than the value: a score that bends downward over weeks is a fault developing. Three health alerts fire at fixed scores, 60 (caution), 40 (warning) and 20 (critical). See The health score and Health events.

Shock event

An Abnormal Shock Detection event, recorded when acceleration at the sensor passes the shock threshold. The threshold is stored on the sensor, accepts 20 to 100 g and defaults to 100 g, so only severe impacts register. With Log on, each event joins the machine's event list with its value in g. See Shock events.

Production

Part

A thing your plant makes, with a name, a picture and files, held in the Parts List. Every production number traces back to a part and one of its operations. See Create parts and operations.

Operation

One thing a machine does to a part, for example a roughing pass, a press stroke or a deburr. The operation carries the detection algorithm, the quantity per cycle and the ideal cycle time, so counts, goals and scheduled tasks all belong to it. See Create parts and operations.

Detection algorithm

The rule on an operation that decides when one cycle has finished, which sets the part count and the measured cycle time. BeamTracker takes Counter only. SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded take Continuous Analysis when the trace never returns to the stopped level, Discrete Analysis when each part is one burst with quiet either side, or Discrete w/o Merge when every impact is a part. See Choose an algorithm.

Quantity per cycle

How many parts one machine cycle produces, set on the operation as QTY/OP. A four-cavity mold makes four parts per shot, so one detected cycle counts four. See Create parts and operations.

Cascading group

A set of machines one part passes through in sequence, grouped so the Assets page reads them as a line. Each machine gets a step number, and every step after Step 1 reports first pass yield against it. See Group machines into cascades.

Scrap reason

A named cause, from one organization-wide list, that every scrap entry carries. You pick it in the Log Scrap dialog or on a scrap row when you pause or complete a job. There is no free-text alternative, so every scrapped part rolls up under a reason you can rank. See Log scrap.

Work session

One continuous run of a task, with a start, an end, and the good parts and scrap logged in it. Start or Resume in the job runner opens a session; Pause and Complete Job close it. The Gantt draws sessions as a strip under each bar. A work session is separate from an operator's clock-in. See Start, pause, and complete a job.

Job and task

A job is an order for a quantity of a part, usually with a due date. A task is one operation of that job on one machine, and it is what the Production Scheduler plans and an operator runs. The Create Workorder form adds one task; creating a work order for each operation fans a job out into one task per operation. See Job, task, or work order? and Create a production work order.

Scheduling and maintenance

Gantt view

The Production Scheduler view that draws each task as a bar on a time axis, in a lane per machine, job or person, with dependencies, working hours, work sessions and a capacity lane. Drag a bar to move it, an edge to resize it, or into another lane to reassign it. The optimizer and simulations start here. See Gantt view.

Kanban view

The Production Scheduler view that draws one column per group and one card per task. The columns follow the grouping, not the status: grouped by asset you get a column per machine, by operator a column per person. Drag a card to another column to reassign it; status is a chip on the card. See Kanban view.

Optimizer

The Optimize pill on the Gantt computes a constraint-aware plan in your browser and draws it as dashed ghost bars, with a banner showing violations and span before and after. Nothing is written until you accept it, and the plan is only as good as the time estimates on the tasks. See Generate a schedule proposal.

Simulation

A draft copy of the schedule that lives in your browser, opened from Simulations on the Gantt. Your moves are staged instead of written, and the Simulation band scores the draft against the live schedule as it stood when you started. What-ifs change working hours or relax rules without saving them. Commit writes the staged changes. See Try a schedule change without saving it.

Work order

In Maintain, one unit of maintenance work, and the only object Maintain has. Only a title and a group are required. It moves through five statuses, Open, In Progress, On Hold, Done and Approved, and can start by hand, from a classified downtime, a machine event rule, a meter or the job runner's Maintenance panel. See Where work orders come from and Create a maintenance work order.

Request

A work order raised because a machine needs attention now, rather than one a planner scheduled. It is the same record with fewer fields filled in: whoever is closest to the problem raises it, from Maintain, the job runner, a machine stop or a phone, and a planner completes it. See Submit a maintenance request.

Preventive maintenance (PM)

A recurrence rule stored on a work order that says when the job comes back: a pattern, an interval and an optional end. There is no separate PM record; a quarterly gearbox inspection is a work order carrying its rule. See Schedule preventive maintenance.

Meter

A running total on one machine, runtime hours or a part count, that IoTFlows adds to from the machine's own stream and counts toward a trigger point. Three optional behaviors act on it: an email at 85%, an email at the trigger, and an automatic work order at 100%. A reset starts the next cycle. Use a meter for work that depends on use rather than the calendar. See Trigger maintenance from meter readings.

Item

One line in the Inventory catalog: a part you buy, a part you make, or a tool you own. Stock, locations and the ledger all hang off items; stock is a quantity of one item at one location. See Create and edit items.

Reorder point

The available quantity at or below which Inventory flags an item for ordering. It is a field on the item, in the item's own unit, and defaults to 0, so an item appears on the Low list only once you set one. See Monitor low stock and reorder points.

Serialized piece

One physical object of an item, told apart from every other: this 6 m bar, that 250 kg roll. Each piece carries its own ID, amount and location. A work order holds a specific piece rather than a quantity, and two work orders holding the same piece at overlapping times raise a schedule violation. See Track serialized pieces and tools.

Alerts and connectivity

Event rule

The pairing, on one machine, of an event type with the channels that carry it: email, push, SMS, the event log, an automatic work order and your chat integrations. All ten event types are always listed on the machine; a rule is live on the channels you switch on. See Set alert rules for a machine.

Machine event

The record IoTFlows writes when an event rule on a machine fires and Log is on: a health score falling past a threshold, a stop longer than your downtime threshold, a shock above the sensor's limit. Each event carries a severity, Critical, Warning or Caution, and stays in the machine's list until someone dismisses it. See Review and dismiss machine events.

Chat integration

A named destination your organization creates once on the Integrations page and reuses on any machine. It holds a webhook URL you generate in Slack, Microsoft Teams or Discord, which posts into one channel. You attach it per event type and per machine. See Send alerts to Slack, Teams, or Discord.

Webhook

An HTTPS endpoint of your own that IoTFlows posts events to, as an HTTP POST with a JSON body. Owners and Administrators add endpoints, subscribe each one to the events it should receive, and set a secret that IoTFlows sends in the iotflows-secret header of every delivery, so your handler can reject anything else. See Send events to your own endpoint.

API key

The credential IoTFlows issues to your organization for the REST API. A program sends it with every request and reads the same records the dashboard shows. Ask IoTFlows for a key. See Integrations and Send events to your own endpoint.

MQTT

The lightweight publish-and-subscribe protocol behind IoTFlows' live data. Devices connect out to the IoTFlows cloud over HTTPS and MQTTS on port 443, and open dashboard pages subscribe over MQTT, so a machine card repaints the moment its sensor publishes. See How the dashboard stays live.

MTConnect

An open, royalty-free standard from the MTConnect Institute for machine tool data, such as execution state, spindle speed and part count, served read-only over HTTP by software called an agent. On Enterprise, the IoTFlows edge device reads CNC machines over MTConnect as a custom integration, beside the sensor data. See MTConnect, OPC UA and Modbus compared and Custom integrations.

OPC UA

Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture: a platform-independent framework from the OPC Foundation for modeling industrial data and exchanging it securely between clients and servers, with reads and writes governed by access permissions. On Enterprise, the IoTFlows edge device reads controllers over OPC UA as a custom integration. See MTConnect, OPC UA and Modbus compared.

Modbus

A request-and-reply protocol from the Modbus Organization in which a client reads or writes numbered bits and 16-bit registers on a device, over Ethernet (Modbus TCP) or a serial line. On Enterprise, the IoTFlows edge device reads Modbus TCP devices as a custom integration. See MTConnect, OPC UA and Modbus compared.

2.4 GHz

The Wi-Fi band every IoTFlows device joins; a network that broadcasts only on 5 GHz never appears in the device's scan. A device gets its Wi-Fi credentials over Bluetooth from the mobile app in setup mode, then connects out over HTTPS and MQTTS on port 443. The 4G/LTE router broadcasts 2.4 GHz too. See Connect a device to Wi-Fi.

PLC

A programmable logic controller, the computer that runs a machine. IoTFlows sensors read the machine from the outside and never connect to it. On Enterprise, PLC data can be brought in on purpose through the IoTFlows edge device as a custom integration. See Do the sensors connect to my PLC? and Custom integrations.

SCADA

Supervisory control and data acquisition: software, controllers and networks that gather data from a process, show it to operators in one place and send commands and setpoints back to the equipment. IoTFlows sensors read a machine from the outside and send nothing to it, so they run beside a SCADA system without touching it. See How SCADA differs from IIoT and cloud monitoring.

Manufacturing systems

Industry 4.0

A strategy for connected production that Germany set out in 2013: machines, products and software exchange data so a plant can see and adjust its operations while they run, instead of after the shift ends. It is a strategy, not a standard a plant can be certified against. See What Industry 4.0, IIoT and digital twins mean.

IIoT

The industrial internet of things: the sensors, machine controllers and software that collect data from industrial equipment and deliver it to the people and systems that run a plant, such as dashboards, maintenance software and production schedules. See What Industry 4.0, IIoT and digital twins mean.

Digital twin

A software representation of a machine, line or process that exchanges data with it automatically in both directions, so a change in either one shows up in the other. A copy fed only one way, from the machine to the software, is a digital shadow. See What Industry 4.0, IIoT and digital twins mean.

MES

Manufacturing execution system: software that runs operations on the shop floor. It dispatches orders to work centers, tracks each job through its routing, and keeps the record of what was made, when, by whom and to what quality. ISA-95 places it at Level 3, between the business systems above and the machine controls below. See What IoT machine data adds to an MES and Machine monitoring vs MES vs CMMS.

ERP

Enterprise resource planning: the business system that holds orders, routings, inventory, purchasing and costs, at ISA-95 Level 4. The Production Scheduler imports jobs from any ERP's CSV or Excel export, and on Enterprise a custom integration builds two-way connectors to the ERP's own API. See Import a schedule from your ERP and Connecting machine data to your ERP.

CMMS

Computerized maintenance management system: software that records maintenance work orders against each machine, schedules preventive maintenance by calendar or run time, tracks spare parts and keeps the repair history. Maintain is the IoTFlows CMMS, and Inventory holds the parts it uses. See What is a CMMS, and why start it from the machine?.

Products

SenseAi

A magnet-mounted sensor that reads a machine's vibration and sound and reports its status, uptime, downtime and part counts, with no PLC connection. It mounts on or near the machine and sends its data to the IoTFlows cloud over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router. See SenseAi.

SenseAi Embedded

SenseAi in a sealed IP67 housing that reads vibration and temperature, with no acoustic channel. It runs the same application and reports the same things, and the housing lets it mount on the motor or spindle itself, where coolant, wash-down or dust would end a standard unit. Reading at the source adds advanced health analytics. See SenseAi Embedded.

BeamTracker

A laser sensor that counts units as they pass a point. Each unit that breaks the beam is a timestamped count, and the time between counts decides whether the line reads running or stopped. It counts without touching the part, which suits a line where units move along a fixed path. See BeamTracker.

4G/LTE router (IFCR-150)

The IoTFlows cellular router. It creates its own 2.4 GHz network for IoTFlows sensors and carries their traffic to the cloud over 4G/LTE, so they never join a network the plant owns. It ships configured with its SIM fitted, and one router serves every sensor in range. See IoTFlows 4G/LTE router.

Edge device

The IoTFlows edge device is the on-site gateway behind an Enterprise custom integration, typically for plants with 50+ machines. It reads PLCs, robots and third-party sensors over protocols such as OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet and MQTT, and its signals feed the same event rules as sensor data. Each project is scoped and priced with you. See Custom integrations.

Production Scheduler

The planning surface of the Scheduling Engine module, on the Scheduler tab of Production. It holds every open production work order and draws the same schedule five ways: List, Table, Gantt, Kanban and Calendar. Switching views changes nothing about the schedule, only what you can see and move. See The Production Scheduler.

Maintain

The IoTFlows CMMS, on the web and in the iOS and Android apps. Its only object is the work order: a request, a planned job and a preventive maintenance schedule are the same record with different fields filled in. It shows your organization's work orders in List, Table, Kanban and Calendar views. See Overview: maintenance management.

Inventory

The IoTFlows storeroom: a catalog of the parts and tools you stock, a count of each one by location, and a ledger of every movement. Maintain and Production hold no stock of their own; a work order reserves what it needs, and closing it moves the stock. See Overview: track parts and tools.

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Contact support and report bugs

How to reach IoTFlows support by email or from the dashboard feedback popover, request training, file a bug with the details support needs, and send a feature request.