--- title: "Overview: monitor machines and OEE" description: "What machine monitoring in IoTFlows answers and which page answers which question. Utilization, downtime and machine health come from the sensor alone; the parts gauge needs an ideal cycle time, and there is no combined OEE figure. Five views cover it: the Assets page for now and the current shift, the machine page for one machine, Downtimes for where the stopped time went, the Advanced Report for a month or quarter, and Canvas for a floor plan with live status. Shifts and the organization time zone must be set before any number is trustworthy." category: "Start here" source_url: "https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/overview/" --- # Overview: monitor machines and OEE What monitoring tells you about your machines, and which page answers which question. Machine monitoring turns the running and stopped states a sensor reports into numbers about a machine: whether it is running now, how much of the shift it ran, and where the stopped time went. It needs a device online, see [Quickstart: see your first machine's data](/docs/get-started/quickstart/), and shifts defined, see [Shifts and time zone](/docs/admin/shifts-and-timezone/). ## What monitoring gives you Every number here is defined once, on [How each metric is calculated](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/). Three of them carry the section. *Utilization* is the share of a window the machine spent running, see [Uptime](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/#uptime). The same percentage is labeled **Uptime** on a machine card. *Downtime* is the time the sensor reported the machine stopped, with or without a reason on it, see [Downtime](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/#downtime). *OEE* is the textbook product of availability, performance and quality. IoTFlows shows availability as uptime and performance as the parts gauge, separately, and measures no quality factor, see [Uptime](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/#uptime). Beside those three, the sensor's vibration trace feeds a health score per machine, see [Monitor machine health and vibration](/docs/monitoring/machine-health/). ### Do you need parts and operations? You do not need parts and operations to use this section. Utilization, downtime and machine health come from the sensor alone. The parts gauge does not: it needs an ideal cycle time entered per operation, and quality is never measured. Start with the sensor numbers. Add operations when you want to know whether a running machine is running fast enough, see [Overview: track and schedule production](/docs/production/overview/). ## The five views Start from the question, not the page. Diagram: A diagram of five rows. Each row is a question on the left, an arrow, and a box on the right naming the monitoring view that answers it. Which machines are running right now, and how is the shift going: the Assets page, Assets, Overview tab. Why does this one machine read the way it does: the machine page, opened from any card. Where did the stopped time go, and which reason costs the most: Downtimes, Assets, Downtimes tab. How much did each machine run this month or quarter: Advanced Report, Assets, Advanced Report tab. Where does each machine sit on the floor, and is it running: Canvas, Assets, Canvas tab. *The five monitoring views and the question each one answers.* ### Question router | I want to know… | Page | |---|---| | Which machines are running right now, and how the shift is going | [Monitor your fleet on the Assets page](/docs/monitoring/assets-overview/) | | Why one machine's number reads the way it does | [Inspect a single machine](/docs/monitoring/asset-detail/) | | Where the stopped time went, and which reason costs the most | [Analyze downtime with Pareto and trend charts](/docs/monitoring/downtimes/) | | How much each machine ran this month or quarter | [Build a utilization report](/docs/monitoring/advanced-report/) | | Where each machine sits on the floor, and whether it is running | [Map your floor with Canvas](/docs/monitoring/canvas/) | The first four are tabs of the same **Assets** page, at `/assets?select=overview`, `downtimes`, `advanced_report` and `canvas`. The machine page opens from any card. For anything about now or the current shift, start on the Assets page, which is live. Open the Advanced Report only for a period longer than a day: it covers a range you choose rather than the current shift. ## What you must configure first Two settings decide whether any number is trustworthy. 1. **Shifts and the organization time zone.** Every window on every page is a shift, and every time is in the organization's time zone, not yours. For example, a 7 AM to 3 PM shift left in the wrong time zone reports the machine stopped for hours nobody worked, and the night shift's stops land on the wrong date. See [Shifts and time zone](/docs/admin/shifts-and-timezone/). 2. **The running threshold.** The sensor decides running or stopped by where the vibration sits against a threshold set during calibration. A threshold set too high reads every machine as stopped. See [Calibrate SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded](/docs/hardware/calibrate-senseai/). Two more are optional. A [downtime category](/docs/monitoring/downtime-categories/) list gives operators reasons to pick from, and an [uptime goal](/docs/monitoring/oee-goals/) colors each number green or red against a target. Both change what the pages can say, not what they count. ## Where to go next Read one shift end to end on [Quickstart: read your first shift of machine data](/docs/monitoring/quickstart/). If a number already looks wrong, go straight to [Troubleshoot wrong utilization or OEE](/docs/monitoring/troubleshoot-monitoring/). ## See also - [Quickstart: read your first shift of machine data](/docs/monitoring/quickstart/) - [How each metric is calculated](/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference/) - [Shifts and time zone](/docs/admin/shifts-and-timezone/) - [Monitor your fleet on the Assets page](/docs/monitoring/assets-overview/)