# IoTFlows

> IoTFlows is a manufacturing intelligence platform that monitors machines with plug-and-play sensors or custom integrations to any PLC, robot or sensor, and turns the data into utilization, downtime, OEE, production scheduling and maintenance workflows. Used by 100+ manufacturers (organizations with active devices, October 2026). Customers see 35% less unplanned downtime in the first six months (median across IoTFlows customers, internal data). This file indexes the website, the documentation, the customer stories with their measured results, and the blog.

## Website

- [IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/): IoTFlows is a manufacturing intelligence platform that monitors machines with plug-and-play sensors or custom integrations to any PLC, robot or sensor, and turns the data into utilization, downtime, OEE, production scheduling and maintenance workflows. Used by 100+ manufacturers (organizations with active devices, October 2026). IoTFlows captures data from every machine on the floor through its own AI sensors, through a customer's existing systems and data feeds, or both, then runs analytics and AI engines on it to deliver real-time utilization, downtime with root causes, production counts against targets, OEE, machine health and predictive maintenance. The same platform schedules production, runs maintenance work orders, alerts the right people, reports by shift, operator and department, and integrates with ERP and other business systems. Customers see 35% less unplanned downtime in the first six months (median across IoTFlows customers, internal data). ROI typically in under three months (customer-reported, internal data).
- [Machine monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/platform/machine-monitoring): Machine monitoring software that works on any machine with no PLC: a sensor shows within minutes whether a machine is running, how much of the shift it ran and where the stopped time went. Five views, downtime categories with automatic classification rules, machine health from the same sensor, Operator View, wallboards and scheduled reports.
- [OEE tracking](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/oee-tracking): OEE tracking that reports each factor on its own: availability as uptime (running over running plus stopped, measured by a SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded or BeamTracker on the machine, with unknown time kept out) and performance as the parts gauge (parts made against what the ideal cycle time allows in the running time), both automatic, and quality on Shift Production (good parts as a share of everything counted, from the scrap operators log with a reason). One OEE goal colors every gauge green or red, with per-machine overrides; Shift Production, the Advanced Report, Historical and Operator Performance cover the shift, any period and each operator. Jesel made OEE the daily driver of its CNC shop and checks every cycle time against its bills of material.
- [Downtime tracking](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/downtime-tracking): Machine downtime tracking software that catches every stop from the sensor in seconds, with no PLC or operator input; lets operators put a reason on it in a tap from reason codes under severity headings (with required notes and planned-downtime flags), at the machine, in Operator View or in the iOS app; classifies short stops, shift starts and ends, whole-shift stops and breaks with automatic rules; ranks reasons by the hours they cost in the Downtimes report Pareto for downtime root cause analysis, with trends by interval and by machine; opens a maintenance work order in Maintain from the stop; and sends Machine Down alerts at a warning and a critical time by email, push, SMS, Slack, Microsoft Teams or Discord. Datwyler cut shift-changeover downtime 50% and material-changeover downtime 30% in six months.
- [Production monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/production-monitoring): Production monitoring that counts every part from the machine's own signal, with a SenseAi or a BeamTracker and no PLC (four detection algorithms, quantity per cycle), against a shift goal calculated from the ideal cycle time less the operation's expected downtime; shows the count, pace and hourly bars on Shift Production, in Operator View and on TVs; reports first pass yield, parts lost and rate difference at every step of a line; logs scrap with a reason; and compares weeks, months and quarters. Set-ups documented for CNC, injection molding, stamping presses and packaging lines. Criollos Foods raised bagging-line output 35% with BeamTracker.
- [Production Scheduler](https://www.iotflows.com/platform/production-scheduler): Production scheduling software on the same machines the sensors monitor: one schedule in list, table, Gantt, Kanban and calendar views, drag-and-drop, a constraint-aware optimizer that proposes before it writes, a simulation sandbox, a schedule-issues list, a capacity lane that projects free tool units and finished parts from inventory on hand, a six-step ERP import, an operator work queue and job runner, and cost and on-time insights. Hugo Benzing raised efficiency 20% by scheduling its tooling with it. The Scheduling Engine module starts at $1,500 per month.
- [Maintain and Inventory](https://www.iotflows.com/platform/maintain): Maintain is the IoTFlows CMMS: maintenance work orders that open from a classified downtime, a machine event rule (health, shock or temperature), a meter at its trigger point, an operator's request from the job runner or a phone, or a planner; one backlog in list, table, Kanban and calendar views; five statuses (Open, In Progress, On Hold, Done, Approved); preventive maintenance as a recurrence on a work order; meters on runtime hours or parts with an email at 85% and a work order at 100%; checklists, photos, comments and an activity log; native iOS and Android with push. Inventory reserves parts when an order is raised and moves stock when it closes, with a ledger, reorder points and serialized pieces. RNPSA halved its maintenance response time with it, and Altium Packaging inspects bottling-line wear parts by bottle count (every 100,000 bottles). Maintain starts at $500 per month.
- [Integrations](https://www.iotflows.com/platform/integrations): Connect IoTFlows to the tools your team already uses. On every plan: ten machine event types to Slack, Microsoft Teams and Discord (a chat integration from a webhook URL), email, SMS and push; hosted webhooks to your own endpoint with a secret header and a real test payload per event; a six-step ERP schedule import from any CSV or Excel export; a REST API with an IoTFlows-issued key (rest-api-docs.iotflows.com); MQTT set up by IoTFlows; and the iOS, Android and Google TV apps. For Enterprise customers, typically 50+ machines: two-way ERP connectors (Epicor, SAP, Oracle, JobBOSS, ProShop and others) and PLC, robot and sensor data through the IoTFlows edge device. Proof: MiRus raised efficiency more than 20% and ties every Epicor job to its machining and labor hours through a two-way connector built in about a month; Stanley Black & Decker streams every weld from a major automotive customer's robotic welding lines through the edge device.
- [Custom integrations (Enterprise)](https://www.iotflows.com/platform/custom-integrations): Enterprise service: IoTFlows engineers connect PLCs and controllers (Siemens, Allen-Bradley and others), robots (Fanuc and others), CNC machines over MTConnect, analog and digital sensors and the ERP to IoTFlows through the IoTFlows edge device and two-way connectors, over MTConnect, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet, MQTT or any other protocol, writing a driver when one is missing. The new signals feed the same dashboards, event rules and alerts, Production Scheduler and Maintain (a controller alarm can open a work order). Delivered in five steps (scoping, data mapping, build, validation, handover), typically in one week to a month, for plants with typically 50+ machines, priced by scope. Proof: Stanley Black & Decker scores every weld from the Tucker stud-welding systems on a major automotive customer's robotic lines; MiRus's two-way Epicor connector went live in about a month.
- [Retrofit machine monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/retrofit-machine-monitoring): Retrofit machine monitoring for any machine, no PLC required: SenseAi reads vibration and sound through a magnetic base, SenseAi Embedded reads at the motor (IP67), BeamTracker counts parts crossing its laser; the device decides running or stopped every second. Attaches in seconds and calibrates in under five minutes; no wiring, reversible. Devices connect out over HTTPS on port 443, on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150), which devices within 100 ft (30 m) join on their own, off the plant network. Old and new machines report the same uptime, downtime and part counts. Fits CNC, presses, injection molding, packaging lines, lasers, waterjets and robot cells. For Enterprise (typically 50+ machines), the IoTFlows edge device adds PLC, robot and controller data over MTConnect, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet or MQTT in one week to a month. Sorinex had its machines monitored in under a week.
- [Machine utilization](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/machine-utilization): Machine utilization tracking measured by a sensor on every machine (SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded or BeamTracker): running time over running plus stopped, inside your shifts, with time the sensor was offline reported separately as unknown. Per machine, department and fleet on the Assets page with a daily trend; the Advanced Report over any period at daily to yearly intervals, with Exclude Unknown, Exclude None and Only Uptime switches; one goal colors every uptime gauge green or red, with per-machine overrides; the Downtimes report ranks the reasons behind the stopped hours; Operator Performance pairs operators with the machines they ran for their clocked sessions; CSV and PDF exports and scheduled email reports. Expect 40 to 85% uptime on a CNC machining center, depending on how much of the cycle an operator carries. Storm Power Components doubled machine utilization; Datwyler raised efficiency 20% across 20+ injection molding machines.
- [CNC machine monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/cnc-machine-monitoring): CNC machine monitoring on any brand or age of machine, with no PLC or controller access: a SenseAi (or SenseAi Embedded at the spindle motor, sealed against coolant) attaches magnetically near the spindle and calibrates in under five minutes, on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router. Live running and stopped state, uptime against a goal set from each machine's own baseline (40 to 60% manual, 50 to 70% operator-loaded, 75 to 85% automatic), part counts and cycle times with Discrete Analysis for every part a machine runs, setup and tool-change time classified and ranked on a Pareto chart, machine health and tool-crash shock events that open Maintain work orders. On Enterprise, the IoTFlows edge device reads the CNC control over MTConnect, OPC UA and other protocols. Jesel answers machine issues in minutes, down from hours or days.
- [Injection molding machine monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/injection-molding-machine-monitoring): Injection molding machine monitoring for any press, with no PLC or network cable: a SenseAi on the injection unit or near the hydraulic pump counts every shot with Continuous Analysis and multiplies it by the mold's cavity count (QTY/OP, one operation per mold), holds each press against a shift goal, and keeps mold-open pauses out of the downtime record with a downtime filter of up to 200% of the cycle. Mold Change and Material Change reasons with automatic rules, scrap logged with a reason at the press, and Maintain meters that open mold maintenance on a part count. Datwyler raised efficiency 20% across 20+ molders in six months and cut material-changeover downtime 30%.
- [Stamping press monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/stamping-press-monitoring): Stamping press monitoring for any press and any age, with no PLC or tie-in to the press control: a SenseAi (or SenseAi Embedded) magnet-mounted on the frame near the ram attaches in seconds and calibrates in under five minutes, on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router. Every stroke counted with Discrete w/o Merge at 10 to 120 strokes a minute, times the parts each die makes per stroke (QTY/OP, one operation per die, every die assigned at once); a Downtime Threshold, set by stroke rate, that keeps the gaps between strokes out of the downtime record; Die Change, Setup / Adjustment and Material Loading reasons with automatic rules, ranked on a Pareto chart; uptime goals from each press's own baseline (50 to 65% hand-fed, 65 to 80% coil-fed, 80 to 90% lights-out); Maintain meters that open die maintenance on a hit count, and recurring work orders for weekly clutch and brake inspections. On Enterprise, the IoTFlows edge device reads the press control (die, stroke counter, reason for the last stop) over EtherNet/IP, OPC UA and other protocols. Storm Power Components runs SenseAi on its CNC machines, lasers and presses and doubled machine utilization.
- [Packaging line monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/packaging-line-monitoring): Packaging line monitoring for bottling, bagging and case packing, with no PLC: a BeamTracker bolted beside the conveyor after the last reject point counts every unit the line ships (±2% count accuracy, up to 8 m, IP67); every line on the Assets page with its status, hourly count against goal, total and rate in its own unit; a BeamTracker at each step shows which machine stopped the line (the step whose count stopped first) and, as a cascade, first pass yield and units lost at every step; stops and changeovers are classified and ranked; Maintain meters open work orders on a unit count; Shift Production runs on TVs. Altium Packaging counts every bottle on ten bottling lines and inspects its slide knives every 100,000 bottles; Criollos Foods raised bagging-line productivity 35%.
- [Pricing](https://www.iotflows.com/pricing): IoTFlows pricing in one place: per-device plans (Pro is $119 per device per month billed monthly, $99 on an annual plan and $60 on a three-year plan paid upfront, for 1 to 9 devices, with lower prices from 10 and from 25 devices and 50 or more devices quoted; Enterprise, with SSO, an SLA and custom integrations, is $249 per device per month billed monthly with the same discounts), hardware once (SenseAi $149, SenseAi Embedded $199, BeamTracker $299), the Production Scheduler from $1,500 per month and Maintain from $500 per month, and a pilot on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Prices from Stripe as of October 2026, rounded to the dollar.
- [SenseAi](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai): SenseAi, the plug-and-play machine monitoring sensor: it attaches magnetically in seconds and calibrates in under five minutes, reads vibration and sound with no PLC or wiring into the controls, and reports machine status, uptime, utilization, downtime with reasons, part counts and cycle times derived from the machine's cycle, and vibration health. Connects over 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150), out over HTTPS on port 443. $149 per sensor, once, plus a Pro or Enterprise plan per device per month (Pro $119 billed monthly for 1 to 9 devices, less on longer contracts and more devices). Fits CNC mills and lathes, injection molding, presses and robot cells; SenseAi Embedded for washdown, BeamTracker for counting on a line. Datwyler measured a 20% efficiency gain across a fleet of 20+ injection molding machines; Storm Power Components doubled machine utilization; Sorinex had machines reporting in under a week.
- [SenseAi technical specifications](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai/specs): SenseAi specifications: reads vibration and sound; 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only (WPA2-PSK or WPA3) or 4G LTE through the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router, external screw-on antenna, outbound HTTPS on port 443, set up over Bluetooth from the iOS or Android app; USB-C power, 5 V, 500 mA minimum; 275 mm tall with the antenna, 125 mm across, 220 g, black ABS plastic, -40 to +85 C operating; magnetic base; in the box: the sensor with its antenna, a 10 ft USB-C cable and a USB-C power adapter; $149 once, one-year limited warranty.
- [SenseAi pricing](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai/pricing): SenseAi pricing with a live calculator: $149 per SenseAi, once, then a subscription per device per month. Pro is $119 billed monthly, $99 on an annual plan and $59.50 on a three-year plan paid upfront, for 1 to 9 devices, with lower prices from 10 and from 25 devices and 50 or more devices quoted; Enterprise, with SSO, an SLA and custom integrations, is $249 billed monthly with the same discounts. The full price list by contract and device count, a Pro and Enterprise feature comparison, and a pilot on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Prices from Stripe as of October 2026.
- [SenseAi Embedded](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai-embedded): SenseAi Embedded, the IP67 vibration sensor for machine health: it runs the same application as SenseAi from a sealed housing that mounts on the motor or spindle itself, in coolant and washdown, attaches magnetically in seconds and calibrates in under five minutes, and reports machine status, uptime, utilization, downtime with reasons, part counts and cycle times with no PLC, plus machine health read at the source: a health score against a baseline profile, operations metrics such as bearing health and imbalance, the vibration spectrum and X, Y and Z trends, and temperature with Warning and Critical Temperature alerts. Reads vibration and temperature, with no acoustic channel. Powered at 4.5 to 28 V DC over M12 from an M12 power adapter or daisy-chained with T-splitters (ordered with it); 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150), out over HTTPS on port 443. $199 per sensor, once, plus a Pro or Enterprise plan per device per month (Pro $119 billed monthly for 1 to 9 devices, less on longer contracts and more devices). For CNC spindles, pumps, compressors, gearboxes, motors and fans; MiRus runs SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded and raised efficiency over 20%.
- [SenseAi Embedded technical specifications](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai-embedded/specs): SenseAi Embedded specifications: vibration and temperature sensor in a sealed IP67 housing (dustproof, immersion to 1 m for 30 minutes), -20 to 60 C operating; 2.5 x 1.9 x 1.3 in (64 x 48 x 33 mm) without the antenna, magnetic base 41 x 35 mm, 175 g, space gray aluminum alloy; 4.5 to 28 V DC over a 5-pin A-coded M12 connector, from an M12 power adapter (100 to 240 V AC) or T-splitters, M12 extension cables 1 or 3 m; 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only or 4G LTE through the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router, external antenna, outbound HTTPS on port 443, set up over Bluetooth from the iOS or Android app; in the box: the sensor and its antenna, the M12 power parts ordered with it; $199 once, one-year limited warranty.
- [SenseAi Embedded pricing](https://www.iotflows.com/products/senseai-embedded/pricing): SenseAi Embedded pricing with a live calculator: $199 per SenseAi Embedded, once, then a subscription per device per month. Pro is $119 billed monthly, $99 on an annual plan and $59.50 on a three-year plan paid upfront, for 1 to 9 devices, with lower prices from 10 and from 25 devices and 50 or more devices quoted; Enterprise, with SSO, an SLA and custom integrations, is $249 billed monthly with the same discounts. The M12 power adapter is ordered separately. The full price list by contract and device count, a Pro and Enterprise feature comparison, and a pilot on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Prices from Stripe as of October 2026.
- [BeamTracker](https://www.iotflows.com/products/beamtracker): BeamTracker, the laser part counter for production lines: an IP67 single-point laser that counts each unit breaking its beam, with ±2% count accuracy, at up to 8 m (26 ft), and reads the line as running while units arrive within a downtime filter you set and stopped after it, back-dated to the last unit. No PLC. Reports part counts and throughput, utilization and OEE, downtime with reasons and history; a BeamTracker on each step of a line, grouped as a cascade, gives first pass yield at every step against Step 1. It bolts on with the supplied mount in 10 to 20 minutes and is set up from its own touchscreen; 4.5 to 28 V DC over M12, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150), out over HTTPS on port 443. Alerts when a line goes down, stays down or starts again; production-count meters in Maintain open inspection work orders. It reads no vibration or machine health: use SenseAi or SenseAi Embedded for those. $299 per BeamTracker, once, plus a Pro or Enterprise plan per device per month (Pro $119 billed monthly for 1 to 9 devices, less on longer contracts and more devices). For bottling and packaging lines, press exits and cell out-feeds; Altium Packaging counts every step of its ten bottling lines with it, Criollos Foods raised bagging-line output 35%, and Hugo Benzing counts packs after its shrink-wrap conveyor.
- [BeamTracker technical specifications](https://www.iotflows.com/products/beamtracker/specs): BeamTracker specifications: single-point laser part counter, non-contact, ±2% count accuracy, range up to 8 m (26 ft) resolved to the millimetre, background at least 7 cm away; built-in 2.79 in (71 mm) touchscreen; housing 3.47 x 1.59 x 1.65 in (88.3 x 40.5 x 42 mm), antenna 2.54 in (64.4 mm), 1/4-20 mount thread, 245 g, space gray aluminum alloy, IP67 (dustproof, immersion to 1 m for 30 minutes), -20 to +70 C operating; 4.5 to 28 V DC over a 5-pin A-coded M12 connector from an M12 power adapter (100 to 240 V AC, 2 m) or a T-splitter, extension cables 1 or 3 m; 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi only or 4G LTE through the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router, external antenna, outbound HTTPS on port 443, set up over Bluetooth from the iOS or Android app; L-shaped bracket or ball-head mount; in the box: the device and its antenna, the mount and M12 power adapter ordered with it; $299 once, one-year limited warranty.
- [BeamTracker pricing](https://www.iotflows.com/products/beamtracker/pricing): BeamTracker pricing with a live calculator: $299 per BeamTracker, once, then a subscription per device per month. Pro is $119 billed monthly, $99 on an annual plan and $59.50 on a three-year plan paid upfront, for 1 to 9 devices, with lower prices from 10 and from 25 devices and 50 or more devices quoted; Enterprise, with SSO, an SLA and custom integrations, is $249 billed monthly with the same discounts. BeamTracker bolts on with the supplied mount in 10 to 20 minutes and counts parts with ±2% count accuracy. The full price list by contract and device count, a Pro and Enterprise feature comparison, and a pilot on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Prices from Stripe as of October 2026.
- [Predictive maintenance](https://www.iotflows.com/solutions/predictive-maintenance): Predictive maintenance that catches failures before they stop production: SenseAi Embedded reads vibration and temperature at the motor or spindle; a health score judged against the machine's own Dynamic Baseline, an ISO 10816 class or a machine-type profile; seven indicators including bearing health; an XYZ FFT spectrum with harmonics; 14 metric trends; health alerts at scores of 60, 40 and 20; and work orders in Maintain beside preventive recurrences and meters. No lead-time figure is published; RNPSA's story is the proof.
- [Shop IoTFlows hardware](https://www.iotflows.com/shop/products): The IoTFlows online shop: SenseAi, the magnetic-mount machine monitoring sensor ($149); SenseAi Embedded, the IP67 vibration sensor for the motor or spindle ($199); BeamTracker, the IP67 laser part counter with ±2% count accuracy ($299 list); and the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150, $99 plus a monthly plan per router), which gives devices their own Wi-Fi network over 4G/LTE. One device per machine, bought once, plus a plan per device per month (monthly, one year or three years); devices ship tied to the buyer's organization, with nothing to claim or activate. Each product page configures the quantity, the plan and the accessories it needs (a mount and M12 power for BeamTracker, M12 power for SenseAi Embedded) and adds them to the cart. Hardware prices are the shop's Stripe prices and may include a promotion.
- [Accessories for IoTFlows devices](https://www.iotflows.com/shop/accessories): Accessories in the IoTFlows shop, filterable by the device they fit: BeamTracker mounts (the 11 inch arm and mount, the L-shaped bracket, the ball-head mount), the M12 5-pin A-coded power adapter, 1 m and 3 m M12 extension cables and the M12 T-splitter for SenseAi Embedded and BeamTracker, and a Google TV with the IoTFlows app for dashboards on the floor. SenseAi needs nothing extra (USB-C cable and power adapter in the box); SenseAi Embedded needs the M12 power adapter; BeamTracker needs a mount and the M12 power adapter.
- [About IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/company/about): Who IoTFlows is and why it exists: a mission to connect the unconnected. Founded in Atlanta in 2020 by two Georgia Tech engineers from the factory floor: Mahmoud Parto, PhD (co-founder and CEO), who grew up in the factory his father spent his life building, and Ulises Carrasco, MS (co-founder and COO), from SLB's manufacturing robotics team. Built on three decisions: any machine online in minutes with its own sensors (SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded, BeamTracker) or custom integrations to PLCs, robots and ERPs; live data that reaches the operator, maintenance and the planner; and a start for every factory of every size (a pilot of 10 to 25 machines for four weeks). More than 100 manufacturers, including plants at Delta Air Lines, Siemens, Textron, Stanley Black & Decker and Parker.
- [Get help with IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/company/support): How to reach IoTFlows support: email support@iotflows.com, phone 404-390-2110, the contact form, or the docs, with links into the docs for getting started, hardware set-up, troubleshooting (offline devices, status codes, OEE, part counts, alerts), billing and account, and team and access. Email support, documentation and remote onboarding are included on every plan; Pro has email support during business hours, Enterprise adds 24/7 support with a 1-hour support SLA, a dedicated account team, priority escalation and onsite installation and training. FAQ on reporting a bug and what to include, requesting a feature, booking onboarding, an offline device, billing, and where the set-up and troubleshooting guides are.
- [Security](https://www.iotflows.com/company/security): How IoTFlows protects machine data: sensors read machines from the outside with no connection to the PLC or controller; devices connect out over HTTPS and MQTTS on port 443, or stay off the plant network on the 4G/LTE router; encryption at the edge, in transit and at rest on AWS and Google Cloud; signed firmware updates; four roles and per-member machine access; multi-factor authentication on every account and SAML single sign-on on Enterprise; an audit log; retention of 2 or 5 years, exports and deletion on request. No customer data is used to train AI.
- [Compare IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/compare): The hub for IoTFlows' comparisons with other machine monitoring and maintenance platforms: IoTFlows vs MachineMetrics, Guidewheel, Factbird, Amper by ECI and Redzone; alternatives pages for MachineMetrics, Pulsar, Guidewheel, Amper, Datanomix, Redzone, MaintainX, UpKeep, Fiix, Limble and IoTFlows itself; and two approach guides (sensor-based vs PLC machine monitoring, and machine monitoring vs MES vs CMMS). Every statement about another company comes from that company's own public pages, listed with the date it was read.
- [IoTFlows vs MachineMetrics](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-vs-machinemetrics): IoTFlows against MachineMetrics on setup, machines covered, downtime reasons, maintenance, inventory, scheduling, alerts, price, hardware, contract, pilot and single sign-on, every MachineMetrics fact sourced to its own site, docs, hardware shop or AWS Marketplace listing (read 2026-10-13). IoTFlows: a magnetic SenseAi on any machine attaches in seconds and calibrates in under five minutes, on 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi or the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router, with no PLC or controller access; controller and PLC data (MTConnect, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet, MQTT) through the IoTFlows edge device on Enterprise; Maintain work orders, Inventory and the Production Scheduler built in; SenseAi $149 once plus a per-device Pro or Enterprise plan; pilots of 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy; SAML SSO on Enterprise; SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded and BeamTracker designed by IoTFlows, firmware and all, with signed over-the-air updates. MachineMetrics, per its own pages: control and PLC protocols first with I/O as a fallback, deepest fit in automated machining, 2 to 4 weeks from first contact to first data, work orders in MaintainX, Fiix or UpKeep, the ERP as the inventory system of record, no price on its pricing page and $29,000 a year per unit of up to 13 machines on its AWS Marketplace listing, OpenID Connect SSO only; its hardware shop sells an OnLogic edge PC (balenaOS), Sealevel I/O modules and Greystone current transducers. Worked example: 13 machines for a year. Customer story: MiRus.
- [IoTFlows vs Guidewheel](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-vs-guidewheel): IoTFlows against Guidewheel on what the sensor reads, where it installs, who makes the hardware, part counts, machines powered between parts, machine health, controller data, plant network, maintenance, inventory, scheduling, alerts, price, contract and single sign-on, every Guidewheel fact sourced to its own site, help center, installation guide and terms (read 2026-10-13 and 2026-10-14). Guidewheel, per its own pages: clip-on current sensors on the power leads with state inferred from the signal, installed inside the machine's power panel around the phase 1 cable ("Installing Guidewheel requires accessing the machine's power panel"), self-installed or by its team on site, hardware purchased from third-party suppliers (eGauge meters), part counting as an additional sensor, machines energised between parts can read as running until thresholds are tuned, "it reads power, not process", "it is not predictive maintenance", does not raise work orders, no inventory, scheduling left to the ERP, from $15,000 a year including 10 machines on landing pages (custom quote on its pricing page), the subscription before hardware and installation, which its terms put on the order form (hardware leased or bought) at prices it does not publish, one-year renewing contracts with renewal increases up to 7% a year. IoTFlows: its own SenseAi ships configured and mounts on the outside of the machine with a magnet (no panel, no electrician, no installer's visit, $0 installation), reads vibration, counts parts and filters short stops on the device, SenseAi Embedded scores machine health, Maintain and Inventory built in, Production Scheduler add-on, controller data on Enterprise, first year for 10 machines about $12,200 at published prices with sensors and installation included, at least 18% less than Guidewheel's subscription alone. Customer story: Datwyler.
- [IoTFlows vs Amper by ECI](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-vs-amper): IoTFlows against Amper machine monitoring (acquired by ECI Software Solutions, announced 2025-12-09) on what the sensor reads, who makes the hardware, machine health, part counts, controller data, plant network, maintenance, inventory, scheduling, ERP, alerts, price, hardware price and pilot terms, every Amper fact sourced to its own ECI and legacy Amper pages (read 2026-10-13). Amper, per its own pages: a current loop sensor on the machine's power source, encrypted cellular, automated cycle counting, no vibration or temperature sensor named, PLC integration offered with no MTConnect, OPC UA or FOCAS named, maintenance management and scheduling as add-on modules, ERP integrations on every plan, no inventory module found, alerts by phone or email, custom-quote pricing with hardware inside the quote, a free trial validating hardware on 2 machines and a pilot that asks for an executive sponsor, a project owner and interest in scaling to 25+ machines. IoTFlows: its own vibration sensor, machine health on SenseAi Embedded, Maintain and Inventory built in, published prices (first year for 10 machines about $12,200), pilots on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Customer story: MiRus.
- [IoTFlows vs Redzone](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-vs-redzone): IoTFlows against Redzone (owned by QAD since 2023-02-01) on where machine data comes from, who makes the hardware, time to go live, who sets it up, plant network, machine health, maintenance, inventory, scheduling, price, pilot and contract, every Redzone fact sourced to Redzone's and QAD's own pages (read 2026-10-13). Redzone, per its own pages: a connected workforce solution for midmarket and enterprise plants, a 90-day core coaching program with a coach deployed on site, machine signals from an existing MES, OPC-UA, sensors or operator input with no sensor make or model published, live in 60 days (pricing page), 6 to 8 weeks (blog) and 12 weeks for Scheduling, CMMS with spare-parts inventory in its Reliability module, custom-quote pricing by sites and modules (per site, no per-user fees), a demo with no trial published, and a one-year auto-renewing term in its archived 2023 agreement. IoTFlows: its own sensor on every machine reporting within minutes, machine health on SenseAi Embedded, Maintain and Inventory built in, published prices (first year for 10 machines about $12,200) and pilots on 10 to 25 machines for four weeks with no commitment to buy. Customer story: Criollos Foods.
- [MachineMetrics alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/machinemetrics-alternatives): Seven MachineMetrics alternatives for CNC shops (IoTFlows, Evocon, Vorne XL, Datanomix, Amper by ECI, Guidewheel, FourJaw), with MachineMetrics itself as the reference, scored by an interactive scorecard: each company rated 0 to 10 on ten criteria (cost, time to first data, machine versatility, controller data, setup and IT effort, scheduling, maintenance work orders, spare-parts inventory, own hardware, published pricing) on one written rubric built only from its own published facts (read 2026-10-13), and the visitor's 0-10 weights turn the ratings into a score out of 100. On the CNC job shop preset IoTFlows scores 92 and MachineMetrics 51; on controller data alone MachineMetrics ranks first, then Datanomix. Also: six CNC-shop questions with the vendors that fit each, every rating with its fact and source, company by company, why shops look past MachineMetrics in its own words (2 to 4 weeks to first data, the authority to enable protocols or modify settings on each CNC control, which many plants see as a security concern, scheduling as a separate $16,000 MES Module unit per 13 machines), profiles of the six other companies, a pilot checklist and IoTFlows' pilot terms (10 to 25 machines, four weeks, no commitment to buy). Customer story: Jesel.
- [Pulsar (pulsarml.com) alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/pulsar-alternatives): Seven alternatives to Pulsar (Pulsar Global Corp, pulsarml.com) for plants (IoTFlows, MachineMetrics, Evocon, Vorne XL, Amper by ECI, Guidewheel, FourJaw), with Pulsar as the reference, led by who builds the hardware: IoTFlows designs SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded and BeamTracker, firmware and all; Pulsar's own hardware page shows a relay marked SSR-40 DA with a Pulsar label and its docs show a Teltonika RUT200 router under Teltonika's label, beside its Smart Hub. Scored by the same interactive scorecard (ten criteria, 0 to 10, from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13), defaulting to the Whole plant preset: IoTFlows 94, Pulsar 29. Also: six questions with the vendors that fit each, why plants look past Pulsar in its own words (part counts need a count sensor on OEE Pro, defects entered by hand, the CMMS a separate system, no pricing page), when to stay (offices in Monterrey and Mexico City, WhatsApp alerts, its own team installing in one visit), profiles of the six other companies and IoTFlows' pilot terms (10 to 25 machines, four weeks, no commitment to buy). Customer story: Datwyler.
- [Guidewheel alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/guidewheel-alternatives): Seven Guidewheel alternatives for plants (IoTFlows, FourJaw, Amper by ECI, Pulsar, Evocon, Vorne XL, MachineMetrics), with Guidewheel as the reference, scored by the interactive scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13), defaulting to the Whole plant preset: IoTFlows 94, Guidewheel 33. Leads with what a power reading cannot see, in Guidewheel's own words: it reads power, not process; machines energised between parts can read as running until thresholds are tuned; part counting is an additional data source; it does not raise work orders, holds no inventory and is not predictive maintenance. Also its three price statements (custom quote on its pricing page, from $15,000 a year for 10 machines on landing pages, about $32K per plant a year on a comparison page), its one-year auto-renewing term with renewal increases up to 7%, when to stay (machine state on any machine that uses power), profiles of the six other companies and IoTFlows' pilot terms (10 to 25 machines, four weeks, no commitment to buy). Customer story: Criollos Foods.
- [Amper by ECI alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/amper-alternatives): Seven alternatives to Amper machine monitoring by ECI Software Solutions (acquisition announced 2025-12-09) for job shops (IoTFlows, Guidewheel, FourJaw, MachineMetrics, Datanomix, Evocon, Vorne XL), with Amper as the reference, scored by the interactive scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13); on the CNC job shop preset IoTFlows scores 92 and Amper 58. Leads with what a shop can see before it signs: IoTFlows' pilot (10 to 25 machines, four weeks, published prices, no commitment to buy) against Amper's custom quote and its free trial on 2 machines that asks for an executive sponsor, a project owner and interest in scaling to 25+ machines. Also why shops look past Amper in ECI's own words (scheduling, operator interface, issue and maintenance management as add-on modules; scrap, setups and downtime captured on a touchscreen; inventory only as ERP data), when to stay (shops on an ECI ERP such as JobBOSS2 or M1, ERP integrations in every plan) and profiles of the six other companies. Customer story: Jesel.
- [Datanomix alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/datanomix-alternatives): Seven Datanomix alternatives for CNC shops (IoTFlows, MachineMetrics, Amper by ECI, Guidewheel, FourJaw, Evocon, Vorne XL), with Datanomix as the reference, scored by the interactive scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13); on the CNC job shop preset IoTFlows scores 92 and Datanomix 53, and on controller data alone MachineMetrics then Datanomix rank first. Leads with a sensor on every machine plus control data where the shop wants it: IoTFlows' edge device reads controls and PLCs over MTConnect, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet and MQTT on Enterprise, while Datanomix's own table says current draw on legacy equipment gives machine state only. Also why shops look past Datanomix in its own words (a device wired into each CNC control, the machine's computer, on the shop Wi-Fi, which many plants see as a security concern; a planned-maintenance dashboard with CMMS connections, scrap tracked at the end of the shift, priced per machine per year with no number published), when to stay (control data with No Operator Input and a coach in the rollout), profiles of the six other companies and IoTFlows' pilot terms (10 to 25 machines, four weeks, no commitment to buy). Customer story: MiRus.
- [Redzone alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/redzone-alternatives): Six Redzone (by QAD) alternatives for plants (IoTFlows, MachineMetrics, Amper by ECI, Guidewheel, Evocon, Vorne XL), with Redzone as the reference, scored by the interactive scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13), defaulting to the Whole plant preset: IoTFlows 94, Redzone 63, Amper 56. Fair to Redzone's strengths: a full CMMS with spare parts in its Reliability module and a Scheduling module that picks production sequences. Leads with going live: IoTFlows' sensor calibrates in under five minutes against Redzone's own figures (60 days on its pricing page, 6 to 8 weeks on its blog, 12 weeks for Scheduling, a 90-day core coaching program). Also: machine signals from an existing MES, OPC-UA or operator input with no sensor make published, support terms that exclude the customer's own network, a demo with no trial published, pricing by sites and modules, when to stay (a coached program for frontline teams in midmarket and enterprise plants) and profiles of the five other companies. Customer story: Criollos Foods.
- [MaintainX alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/maintainx-alternatives): Five MaintainX (now part of Autodesk, per its About page) alternatives for maintenance teams (IoTFlows, UpKeep, Fiix, Limble, Redzone), scored on a maintenance-buyer scorecard: ten criteria (cost for 10 users, published pricing, work orders from machines, spare parts, production monitoring, machine health, production scheduling, own hardware, time to machine data, setup and IT effort) rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts (read 2026-10-13). Maintenance team preset: IoTFlows 97, UpKeep 74, MaintainX 57, Fiix 56, Limble 52, Redzone 46; on price and parts alone Fiix ties IoTFlows. Leads with one price for the whole team: IoTFlows Maintain from $500 a month with unlimited users (on top of machine monitoring) against MaintainX Premium, the first plan with parts and meters, at $65 per user a month billed annually ($650 for 10 users, $1,625 for 25). Also: OT data connectors as a paid add-on the plant runs itself, partner vibration sensors (ERBESSD) on Enterprise, availability without OEE, technician-only scheduling, three weeks to implement a site, when to stay (a phone-first CMMS with a free plan and free requesters), profiles of the four other companies and a maintenance pilot checklist. Customer story: RNPSA.
- [UpKeep alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/upkeep-alternatives): Five UpKeep alternatives for maintenance teams (IoTFlows, MaintainX, Fiix, Limble, Redzone), scored on the maintenance-buyer scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13). Maintenance team preset: IoTFlows 97, UpKeep 74, MaintainX 57. Fair to UpKeep's strengths: its own-branded wireless Edge sensors open work orders and install in hours on a cellular gateway. Leads with one price for the whole team: IoTFlows Maintain from $500 a month with unlimited users (on top of machine monitoring) against UpKeep Premium, the first plan with preventive maintenance and inventory, at $55 per user a month ($550 for 10 users, $1,375 for 25), with Edge on a separate licence priced by quote. Also: its Production product (OEE and scheduling) is not yet generally available and relies on operator counts, CMMS downtime tracking on Enterprise, paid implementation packages ($500 to $5,000), Edge sensors sold under its name with no maker published, when to stay (wireless condition sensors in North America and Latin America) and profiles of the four other companies. Customer story: RNPSA.
- [Fiix alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/fiix-alternatives): Five Fiix (part of Rockwell Automation since December 2020) alternatives for maintenance teams (IoTFlows, MaintainX, UpKeep, Limble, Redzone), scored on the maintenance-buyer scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13). Maintenance team preset: IoTFlows 97, UpKeep 74, MaintainX 57, Fiix 56; on price and parts alone Fiix ties IoTFlows, and Fiix has the lowest per-user price ($45 on Basic, parts on every plan). Leads with how machine data reaches the work order: IoTFlows' sensor in minutes with no PLC access, against Fiix's FactoryTalk Optix (about 11 to 15 weeks of staging, Fiix Enterprise required, runtime on an on-site industrial PC, $3,000 per network a year after a one-time charge) or app-exchange integrations from $3k per plant a year plus $6k to implement. Also: older equipment is harder by Fiix's own account, Asset Health needs Augury's sensors deployed by Augury, no OEE and manual downtime, condition triggers on Enterprise only, when to stay (plants already on Rockwell's FactoryTalk) and profiles of the four other companies. Customer story: RNPSA.
- [Limble alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/limble-alternatives): Five Limble alternatives for maintenance teams (IoTFlows, MaintainX, UpKeep, Fiix, Redzone), scored on the maintenance-buyer scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13). Maintenance team preset: IoTFlows 97, UpKeep 74, MaintainX 57, Fiix 56, Limble 52. Leads with who supplies the sensors: IoTFlows designs SenseAi and reports into the same platform as its work orders, while Limble says it doesn't sell sensors and its help center describes buying Monnit's and installing them yourself. Also: downtime entered by a technician with a default of 40 operating hours a week, spare parts, meter PMs, offline mode and the API from Premium+, no OEE, prices only on a learn article (Standard $28, Premium+ $69 per user a month; $690 a month for 10 users) against IoTFlows Maintain from $500 a month with unlimited users (on top of machine monitoring), one site per plan below Enterprise, when to stay (combined calendar, meter and sensor-threshold PMs on partner sensors) and profiles of the four other companies. Customer story: RNPSA.
- [IoTFlows alternatives](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-alternatives): Seven alternatives to IoTFlows (MachineMetrics, Datanomix, Amper by ECI, Guidewheel, FourJaw, Evocon, Vorne XL) and the plant each fits best, scored by the interactive scorecard (ten criteria rated 0 to 10 from each company's own published facts, read 2026-10-13; IoTFlows from its own pages), defaulting to the Whole plant preset: IoTFlows 94, Amper 56, Datanomix 46. Says where another tool fits better, each from its own pages: MachineMetrics and Datanomix for control data from every CNC, Vorne XL for one line bought outright, FourJaw for utilization from 72 pounds per machine a month, Datanomix for a coach in the rollout. Why teams stay: one sensor IoTFlows designs reads any machine, counts parts and scores machine health, with maintenance work orders, spare parts and the production scheduler on the same platform at published prices. FAQ answers: prices (SenseAi $149 per machine once, Pro per machine a month, Enterprise per device, Maintain from $500 a month, Scheduler from $1,500), work orders and spare parts (Maintain and Inventory), part counts and cycle times, installation time, PLC and CNC controller data on Enterprise, data export (CSV and PDF reports, REST API, deletion on request). Customer story: Jesel.
- [Sensor-based vs PLC machine monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/sensor-based-vs-plc-machine-monitoring): A vendor-neutral comparison of sensor-based and PLC or controller machine monitoring, built only on neutral sources read 2026-10-13: the MTConnect Institute (MTConnect defines meaning, does not control machines, does not compete with OPC UA or MQTT; model documentation names version 2.8), AMT (equipment not designed for MTConnect always needs a custom adapter; where no data can be extracted it is impractical), the OPC Foundation (OPC UA reads and writes; 2019 companion specification for MTConnect), FANUC America (controller data path needs a PC and Ethernet; MT-LINKi reaches some legacy CNCs only through an Ethernet converter), Mazak (SENSOR BOX reads a status light or power use), a 2025 peer-reviewed study (CNC part counts from current alone at 96.2% against manual logs), 2018 and 2022 peer-reviewed state-recognition studies (over 80% on eight machine tools; 98.14% on one machine, air cutting hardest), Kentucky and Purdue MEPs and NIST. Covers what each reads, machines covered, what it takes to connect, part counts, running versus idle, alarms, machine condition and cost to connect, a five-question test of whether a machine's control can be read (including whether IT will approve a connection to the control, a security concern for many plants), the standards in plain words, a hybrid pilot, and how IoTFlows combines a sensor on every machine with controller data over MTConnect, OPC UA, Modbus TCP, EtherNet/IP, Profinet and MQTT on Enterprise.
- [Machine monitoring vs MES vs CMMS](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/machine-monitoring-vs-mes-vs-cmms): A vendor-neutral explainer of machine monitoring, MES and CMMS: the question each answers (what the machines are doing; what to make and how the run went; what needs fixing and with which parts), where each sits in ISA-95 in IoTFlows' own words with a link to isa.org (machines Level 0, sensors Level 1, PLCs and monitoring and supervisory control Level 2, MES and SCADA Level 3 by name on ISA's page, ERP Level 4; ISA's page does not name CMMS, and trade summaries split Level 3 into production, maintenance, quality and inventory; ISA committee authors say the levels follow time horizon, not systems), a side-by-side table, which to start with (monitoring first when nobody knows how much machines run; a CMMS when maintenance is on paper; an MES when routings, traceability and quality records are the bottleneck), machines without a PLC, MESA International ceasing operations on 2026-06-30 with ISA taking over its content, and how IoTFlows covers monitoring, maintenance (Maintain from $500 a month) and production scheduling (from $1,500 a month) on one platform. Sources read 2026-10-13.
- [IoTFlows vs Factbird](https://www.iotflows.com/compare/iotflows-vs-factbird): IoTFlows against Factbird on counting production lines, led by BeamTracker, IoTFlows' own laser counter (plus or minus 2% count accuracy, bolts on in 10 to 20 minutes, touchscreen on the device). Every Factbird fact sourced to Factbird's own pages and terms (read 2026-10-14): its DUO gateway (developed by Factbird, per its terms) reads off-the-shelf photoelectric or inductive sensors, the customer's own or supplied by Factbird; installs in under an hour; cellular or Wi-Fi; sold by the production line with one input per line; Production Insights from $399 per line a month plus the Factbird Platform from $1,000 per site a month, hardware priced separately and bought by the customer; maintenance work orders in a separate Connected Operations app at $399 per line a month; shift and batch scheduling; no spare-parts inventory found; a 12-month contract renewing 12 months at a time with 90 days' notice; a 45-day trial that converts to a paid licence unless cancelled, with hardware returned within 14 days or paid in full. IoTFlows: its own hardware, SenseAi on any machine beyond the line, machine health, Maintain and Inventory, the Production Scheduler, monthly, annual or three-year plans, and a first year for 4 lines of about $5,948 with hardware against $31,152 before hardware on Factbird's published prices. Customer story: Criollos Foods.
- [Glossary](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/glossary/): Sixty-five terms you meet in IoTFlows, each defined in one paragraph the way the product measures or configures it and linked to the docs page that explains it. Monitoring: uptime (availability), downtime, unknown time, utilization, the three OEE factors, first pass yield against Step 1, cycle time, shift goal, downtime categories, severity, planned downtime, auto-classification, Pareto chart, status colors, Operator View, operator stations. Machine health: RMS velocity, peak acceleration, crest factor, kurtosis, envelope kurtosis, FFT, harmonics, baseline profiles, ISO 10816, health score, shock events. Production: parts, operations, detection algorithms, quantity per cycle, cascading groups, scrap reasons, work sessions, jobs and tasks. Scheduling and maintenance: Gantt and Kanban views, optimizer, simulation, work orders, requests, preventive maintenance, meters, items, reorder points, serialized pieces. Alerts and connectivity: event rules, machine events, chat integrations, webhooks, API keys, MQTT, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, PLCs. Products: SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded, BeamTracker, the IoTFlows 4G/LTE router (IFCR-150), the IoTFlows edge device, the Production Scheduler, Maintain and Inventory.

## Documentation

Reference and how-to pages for the IoTFlows platform, grouped by section. Each link is the page as plain Markdown.

### admin

- [Review the organization audit log](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/audit-log.md): How to find out who changed something in IoTFlows, when, and what the value was before. The organization audit log lives at /logs and holds one row per change, with a Log message, a color-coded Event chip, and a date. Three filters narrow it: a Users picker, a date range that takes effect on Apply, and a free-text search that matches identifiers as well as words. Selecting a row opens the Log Information modal, which shows the request payload and the record Before and After the change as raw JSON. There is no export. A work order's Activity Logs tab is the same log filtered to that work order, and is the only version the mobile apps reach.
- [Manage payment methods and invoices](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/billing.md): How an Organization Owner runs IoTFlows billing at /{organization}/settings/billing, the one settings page no other role can open. The page holds a Customer Billing email that every invoice and payment failure is sent to, a list of payment cards added through Stripe, and two tabs: Current Invoice, which previews the period in progress, and Invoices, which lists issued invoices with Paid, Open, Draft, Void, and Uncollectible status chips and a downloadable PDF for each. Set the billing email to a shared finance address, because an unpaid invoice suspends the organization, suspension stops machine data collection, and the gap in the record is permanent.
- [Invite people to your organization](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/invite-members.md): How to add people to an IoTFlows organization, by email or as an existing IoTFlows user. One dialog, Add Member, handles both and is reachable from the member directory at /members and from the members control in the dashboard header. Typing a complete email address offers an emailed invite; typing a name or username searches every IoTFlows account. Every invite carries an organization role, and the role list is served by IoTFlows. A pending invite shows in the directory as the invited email address followed by [Invite sent. Pending account creation] until the person creates their account. There is no resend action: to reissue an invite, remove the pending row and invite the address again.
- [Leave an organization](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/leave-an-organization.md): How to end your own membership in an IoTFlows organization, and what it costs you. The Leave organization row sits near the bottom of Organization Settings at /settings/organization and is there for every member whatever their role. Leave, then Confirm Leave, and IoTFlows reports "You left <organization> organization" and returns you to the dashboard home. An Organization Owner has to hand ownership to another member first, because an organization cannot be left without an Owner. Leaving costs you every asset, board, team, and chat scoped to that organization; your IoTFlows account and any other organization you belong to are untouched. There is no way back on your own: rejoining takes a fresh invite, and the new membership starts with access to all machines and no team or board memberships.
- [Limit which machines a member can see](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/machine-access.md): How to restrict an IoTFlows member to specific machines. Machine access is a per-person list of allowed assets, managed from the member directory at /members: each member row carries a control that reads All machines when the list is empty, or a stack of machine avatars when it is not. Opening it shows the Machine access dialog, where tapping a machine grants or revokes it immediately, with no Save step. An empty list is the default and means the member sees every machine. A restriction narrows everything, including the machine pickers on reports and work orders, so a member reporting that a machine disappeared has usually been restricted. Only an Organization Owner or Administrator can see or change the control.
- [Change roles and remove members](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/manage-members.md): How to work the IoTFlows member directory at /members: one search field covering teams and members, the row controls that change a role and remove someone, and what removal leaves behind. Changing a role opens the Edit member role dialog and reports "Member role changed to" the new role. Removing opens the Remove member dialog, and if the person is the last administrator of something inside the organization, a second step asks whether to keep or delete what they administer. A removed member loses access to everything, and their open work orders stay open and become unassigned. The dashboard has no dedicated transfer-ownership control: ownership moves by setting another member's role to Organization Owner.
- [Set your organization name, logo, and handle](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/org-profile.md): How an IoTFlows organization appears to its members and to anyone they chat with. The logo, name, description, and handle all live in the Organization section at /settings/organization, behind an Edit button, and save together with Save. The logo is the exception: it opens a crop dialog and uploads on its own. The handle is the unique short name for the organization and the second half of every member's chat address, in the form username:orghandle. The field accepts lowercase letters, digits, and underscores, and checks availability half a second after you stop typing, but nothing blocks Save on a taken handle. Changing the handle rewrites every member and team chat address, so people outside the organization who saved the old one can no longer find you.
- [Overview: administer your organization](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/overview.md): What an IoTFlows administrator owns and where each setting is documented. Four things constrain what a person can do: the organization they belong to, their role, their machine access, and the boards they are on. Settings live on three screens, Organization Settings at /settings/organization with its Settings and Webhooks tabs, your account at /settings/user, and billing at /settings/billing, which only the Organization Owner can open. Three Organization Settings sections are documented under the job they serve instead: auto-downtime rules, operator stations, and webhooks. Set the time zone and shifts before anyone reads a report; everything else can be changed later.
- [Change your phone number](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/phone-number.md): How to add or change the phone number on your IoTFlows account, and why an account without one cannot receive SMS alerts. The number lives on your account rather than on an organization, so one number follows you into every organization you belong to. Select Edit in the Profile section at /settings/user, then Edit Phone Number, pick the country from the flag dropdown, type the rest of the number and Submit. IoTFlows texts a code; type it into Verification code and select Verify. Your profile is only written when the code is accepted, so abandoning the dialog at the code step leaves the old number in place. There is no resend button: select Back and submit the number again. The SMS subscriber list on an alert rule reads this field, so a member without a number is listed as No phone number and cannot be added.
- [Update your profile and handles](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/profile.md): How to change your avatar, username, name and per-organization handles at /settings/user. Everything in the Profile section belongs to your account and follows you into every organization, so a new photo or a corrected last name reaches all of them at once. Select Edit before anything on the screen accepts a change, then Save, which reports User information updated. The avatar opens an Edit Profile Picture dialog with a square crop box, Zoom and Rotation sliders, a Preview step and a Submit that reports Profile picture updated. Handles are the exception to the account rule: you carry a separate one in each organization, written you:organization, each with its own availability check, and colleagues search by handle to add you to a chat or assign you work. Email cannot be changed here and the phone number has its own dialog.
- [Quickstart: set up a new organization](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/quickstart.md): The first week of a new IoTFlows organization, in the order the steps have to happen. IoTFlows creates the organization for you; there is no self-serve signup. Set the organization profile and handle at /settings/organization, then the Schedule Timezone and the work shifts, which are saved together and are used to bucket data as it arrives. Then invite your team from /members, give each person a role, and add your machines last. Correcting the timezone or the shifts later does not rewrite reports that were already computed.
- [Roles and permissions](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/roles-reference.md): The four IoTFlows organization roles and what each one can do. Organization Owner is the billing and ownership role, Organization Administrator runs day-to-day administration, Organization Member does the shop-floor work including downtime classification, and Organization Observer is read-only. A role says what someone can do; machine access says which machines they can do it to. Scheduler and Maintain boards carry their own Owner and Member roles on top of the organization role.
- [Define shifts and your timezone](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/shifts-and-timezone.md): How to set the hours IoTFlows reads your plant by. One Schedule Timezone covers the whole organization, and the work shifts sit under it in the Schedules panel of Organization Settings at /settings/organization; both save together behind one Edit and one Save, confirmed by a "Work shifts modified" toast. A shift carries a name, the days it runs, a start time, and an end time on 15-minute steps. A shift whose end time is at or before its start time runs past midnight and is entered on the day it starts, so a Friday night shift is one entry with Friday checked; the Assets page then shows that shift whole while reports split it at midnight unless Shift islands is on. Shifts cannot overlap, but the platform does not enforce it, so keeping them distinct is on you. Shifts bucket data as it arrives, so an edit changes how new data is bucketed and does not rewrite reports already computed.
- [Restore a suspended organization](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/suspended-account.md): What the IoTFlows suspension lockout looks like, and how an Organization Owner clears it. An unpaid account suspends the organization, which puts every member behind an Organization Suspended dialog that has no close button and covers every route except /{organization}/settings/billing. The dialog offers Go to Billing and Contact Support. Only the Owner can open the billing page, so no other role can clear the lockout. Machine data does not collect while an organization is suspended: the sensors keep running, nothing is recorded, and paying the bill does not backfill the gap, which reports show as unknown time. Clear a suspension the day it starts.
- [Create and manage teams](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/teams.md): How to create and run an IoTFlows team: a named group of members that boards, chats, and work-order assignment can point at instead of naming people one at a time. Teams live in the Teams section of the member directory at /members, and each team has its own page at /members/teams/<team-uuid>. Create Team asks for a team name and a team handle, checks the handle for availability as you type, then asks you to pick at least one other member; you are added automatically. The team page renames the team and edits the handle in place, adds and removes members, promotes members to team owner, and carries Leave Team and Delete Team. Deleting a team needs a team owner or an Organization Owner or Administrator. There is no team image control in the web dashboard: a team gets a colored avatar automatically.
- [Turn on two-step authentication](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/admin/two-step-auth.md): How to add an authenticator app to your IoTFlows account, and what changes at sign-in. Two-step authentication sits on your account rather than on an organization, so one enrollment covers every organization you belong to. Enroll from a desktop browser: the Two-step authentication section at the bottom of /settings/user renders inside the mobile app, but its toggle is inert there, so enrollment and turning the setting off are both web-only. Turning the Authentication App toggle on opens Set up authentication app, which shows a QR code to scan into an authenticator app such as 1Password or Google Authenticator; Next then asks for the 6-digit code, and IoTFlows submits it the moment the sixth digit lands. The sign-in challenge itself works on web, iOS and Android. Turning the toggle off takes effect immediately with no code and no confirmation, and there is no self-serve recovery if you lose the authenticator.

### alerts

- [Set alert rules for a machine](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/asset-event-rules.md): Configure Event Notifications on one machine: the ten event types across machine status, connectivity, shock, health and temperature, the threshold each one takes, the six channels every event can use, the per-event subscriber lists that decide who is actually told, and which sections each device type shows.
- [Send alerts to Slack, Teams, or Discord](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/chat-integrations.md): Create a chat integration on the Integrations page from a webhook URL you generate in Microsoft Teams, Discord or Slack, name it, send it a test event, then attach it to the Integrations column of the event rules on each machine that should reach that channel.
- [Event types and channels](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/event-types-reference.md): The full lookup for machine alerts: all ten event types with their on-screen titles, what fires each one, the threshold it takes and that threshold's default, the six channels every event offers, which sections each device type shows, and which three channels go through a per-event subscriber list.
- [Turn on push notifications on your phone](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/mobile-push.md): Push is the only IoTFlows channel that reaches someone away from a screen. Allow the operating system permission, see which three things send push (machine event alerts, work orders and their comments, and chat messages), where each notification opens when you tap it, how a notification from a second organization is routed, and the Android sign-out defect that stops push arriving until the app is reinstalled.
- [Overview: alerts and integrations](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/overview.md): Every way IoTFlows tells someone something: the six channels a machine event rule can fire through, which of them reach a subscriber list and which change the machine for everyone, where rules and integrations are configured, and the four things that email people without being event rules at all.
- [Quickstart: get an email when a machine goes down](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/quickstart.md): Set up one alert end to end: open Event Notifications on one machine, find the Machine Down row by its amber WARNING chip, set the time threshold in minutes above your normal changeover, add yourself to that event's email subscriber list, then stop the machine on purpose and confirm the email arrives.
- [Troubleshoot alerts you did not receive](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/troubleshoot-alerts.md): Symptom, cause and fix for an alert that should have fired and did not. Work the delivery path in order: confirm the event fired by turning Log on and reading the machine's Event Alerts list, then the channel switch on that machine's rule, then that event type's subscriber list, which is empty more often than anything else, and only then the destination. Also covers push that stops after an Android sign-out, SMS to a member with no verified phone number, a chat integration whose webhook was revoked, a rule that fires too often, and an event type the device type does not offer.
- [Send events to your own endpoint](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/alerts/webhooks.md): Post IoTFlows events to an HTTPS URL you control. Add a hosted endpoint under Organization Settings with its URL, description and the signing secret you choose, subscribe it to the events your system acts on, and send each event's real test payload to your URL before you write the handler. The selectable event list is served by IoTFlows and read off the screen, so this page shows how to read it rather than reproducing it.

### get-started

- [Frequently asked questions](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/faq.md): Answers to the questions asked before buying IoTFlows and during the first week after: whether the sensors touch the PLC, what machines they fit, how long an install takes, whether one sensor can cover two machines, what network access the devices need, how an organization gets created, whether a machine's history survives a sensor swap, and where invoices live.
- [Contact support and report bugs](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/get-support.md): 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.
- [Glossary](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/glossary.md): The terms you meet in IoTFlows, each defined in one short paragraph the way the product measures or configures it and linked to the page that explains it: uptime, downtime, unknown time, utilization, the three OEE factors, first pass yield, cycle time, shift goals, downtime categories, severity, planned downtime, status colors, RMS velocity, crest factor, kurtosis, FFT, harmonics, baseline profiles, health score, shock events, parts, operations, detection algorithms, cascading groups, scrap reasons, work sessions, jobs and tasks, the Gantt and Kanban views, the optimizer, simulations, work orders, requests, preventive maintenance, meters, items, reorder points, serialized pieces, event rules, webhooks, MQTT, API keys, 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded, BeamTracker, the Production Scheduler, Maintain, Inventory, the 4G/LTE router and the IoTFlows edge device.
- [How sensors, the cloud, and the dashboard fit together](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/how-iotflows-works.md): The four layers a reading passes through, from the sensor on the machine through Wi-Fi or the 4G/LTE router to the IoTFlows cloud and the dashboard: what each layer decides, why running and stopped is decided on the device while uptime and health are computed in the cloud, and what each layer looks like when it fails.
- [Install the mobile app and sign in](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/install-mobile-app.md): Install the IoTFlows app from the App Store or Google Play, sign in with the same account you use on the web, turn on Face ID on iOS, allow notifications so push alerts arrive, and see which capabilities exist only on a phone: Bluetooth Wi-Fi provisioning, push, camera-first maintenance requests, and the system share sheet.
- [Navigate and search the dashboard](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/navigate-the-dashboard.md): How the IoTFlows dashboard is laid out: the eight product tabs and the routes behind them, the header search box that finds a machine, part or person by name across your organization, the dark mode switch that is stored on your account rather than the browser, the profile menu that holds Operator View, and what the mobile app carries instead.
- [What works without a connection](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/offline-behavior.md): What each IoTFlows client keeps when the network drops, which differs by platform: Android stores chats on the device and queues messaging writes in an outbox that flushes oldest first, iOS holds messages in memory and asks you to tap a failed send to retry, Maintain caches its list on iOS only, Inventory paints a cached parts list on both but refuses offline adjustments, and the web dashboard caches nothing at all and freezes on its last-loaded numbers behind a Waiting for Network or Trying to connect toast.
- [Overview: what IoTFlows does](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/overview.md): What IoTFlows is and where to start in its docs: the quickstart, how a reading travels from a sensor through Wi-Fi or the 4G/LTE router to the IoTFlows cloud and the dashboard, what the platform reports from that one signal (uptime, downtime, part counts, machine health, and the OEE factors on their own), which device fits which machine (SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded, BeamTracker, the IFCR-150 router, the edge device for Enterprise custom integrations), the eight sections of the docs, which page answers which question, and what you need before the first machine shows data.
- [Quickstart: see your first machine's data](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/quickstart.md): The end-to-end path from a sensor in the box to one machine reporting live utilization, for SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded, and BeamTracker: mount and power the device, connect it to Wi-Fi or the 4G/LTE router, create the machine as an asset, confirm data is arriving, and set what counts as running.
- [Plan your rollout](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/roll-out-plan.md): A four-phase plan for putting a plant on IoTFlows: pilot at least 10 machines on one line for two weeks, win operator adoption and turn on alerts, cut the downtime category list down to reasons you can act on, and only then add scheduling and maintenance. Each phase carries a gate that has to close before the next one starts.
- [Sign in to IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/sign-in.md): Every route into IoTFlows: the email-first sign-in at dashboard.iotflows.com, when an address is redirected to a company identity provider instead of asking for a password, the six-digit two-step code on web and mobile, Face ID on iOS, and how to reset a forgotten password.
- [Switch between organizations](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/get-started/switch-organizations.md): How to move an IoTFlows account between the organizations it belongs to: the switcher in the dashboard header, the drawer on Android and the modal on iOS, why your handle carries the organization it is used in, and what carries across the switch.

### hardware

- [BeamTracker](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/beamtracker.md): BeamTracker is a laser sensor that counts units as they pass a point: each unit breaking its beam registers a timestamped count, and the time between counts decides whether the line reads as running or stopped. It has a built-in touchscreen for on-device setup, ships with an external antenna only, since M12 power and the mounting bracket are ordered separately, and reports no machine health, vibration or temperature, so those alerts are unavailable on a BeamTracker asset.
- [Buy IoTFlows hardware](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/buy.md): The two ways to buy IoTFlows devices: the online shop, which applies tiered quantity discounts automatically at checkout, and the sales team, for a platform demo, custom requirements, larger orders, and corporate accounts spanning several organizations.
- [Calibrate BeamTracker](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/calibrate-beamtracker.md): Calibrate a BeamTracker in two halves: the beam values decide what the laser counts as a part, and the downtime filter decides how long a gap between parts may run before the line reads as stopped. Both live in the device's Calibration tab on the dashboard, alongside a live beam view that plots the raw reading against the thresholds you are setting.
- [Calibrate SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/calibrate-senseai.md): Tune running and stopped detection for one specific machine from the device's Calibration tab: stream live vibration while the machine works and while it idles, place the running and stopping thresholds against what you captured, then use momentum to stop the status flickering. The same panel carries the shock threshold, the channel selection, the uptime filter and short-stop handling, and this page maps every control to the setting it writes and whether that setting belongs to the sensor or the machine.
- [Calibration settings](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/calibration-settings.md): Look up any SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded or BeamTracker calibration field: its unit, the range the control accepts, its shipped default, what it changes, and where it is edited. Starts with a symptom router that maps what the numbers are doing wrong to the one field that corrects it, and links each row to the procedure page that explains how to set it.
- [Connect a device to Wi-Fi](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/connect-to-wifi.md): Put any IoTFlows sensor onto a 2.4 GHz network using Bluetooth from the mobile app: hold the Wi-Fi button until the LED blinks blue, or open WiFi Configuration on the BeamTracker touchscreen, then hand the device its credentials from the phone and save the network to your organization so the next device provisions without retyping it.
- [Install and align BeamTracker](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/install-beamtracker.md): Mount a BeamTracker across the flow of finished parts and aim its beam: the device is a single unit with no reflector, firing an invisible laser that resolves to the millimetre at up to 8 meters (26 ft), mounted on a separately ordered bracket, powered over M12 at 4.5 to 28 V DC, and set up from its own touchscreen rather than from the dashboard.
- [Install and power up SenseAi Embedded](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/install-senseai-embedded.md): Mount a SenseAi Embedded on the motor or spindle it should read, connect the antenna, power it over M12 at 4.5 to 28 V DC from either the supplied adapter or a T-splitter, and confirm first boot; the sealed IP67 housing is what lets the unit sit in coolant and wash-down close to the source, and the job takes 5 to 45 minutes depending on how reachable that spot is.
- [Install and power up SenseAi](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/install-senseai.md): Mount a SenseAi on a machine and bring it online: connect the external antenna, pick a flat metal surface close to the spindle or main motor, attach the magnetic base square against it, power the unit from the supplied adapter or a machine USB port supplying at least 500 mA, and confirm the LED at first boot.
- [LED and screen status codes](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/led-and-status-codes.md): Decode what an IoTFlows device is showing you: every SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded LED color and pattern, every BeamTracker touchscreen state, and the next step for each, from blinking blue in Wi-Fi setup mode through steady cyan and orange, which report the machine as down or running once the unit is online.
- [IoTFlows 4G/LTE router](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/lte-router.md): The IFCR-150 is a cellular router that gives IoTFlows sensors their own 2.4 GHz network, reaching the cloud over 4G/LTE instead of facility Wi-Fi; it ships configured with its SIM fitted, needs no IT change request, and keeps every device behind it off the plant network entirely.
- [Manage saved Wi-Fi networks](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/manage-wifi-networks.md): Move a deployed SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded or BeamTracker onto a different network from the dashboard's Networks tab, without a phone or a trip to the machine: push a new SSID and password over the device's existing connection, reuse a network your organization has already saved, or delete saved credentials that have gone stale. The device must be online; an offline device still needs Bluetooth provisioning from the mobile app.
- [Overview: IoTFlows hardware](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/overview.md): The three IoTFlows sensors and the router that connects them: SenseAi reads vibration and acoustics on general machinery, SenseAi Embedded runs the same application from an IP67 housing that mounts on the motor itself, BeamTracker counts units passing a point with a laser, and the IFCR-150 4G/LTE router carries any of them when facility Wi-Fi is not an option.
- [SenseAi Embedded](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/senseai-embedded.md): SenseAi Embedded runs the same application as SenseAi but reads vibration and temperature, with no acoustic channel, because its IP67 housing is sealed; the rating buys placement, letting it mount on the motor or spindle itself where reading at the source adds advanced health analytics, and it ships with an external antenna only, since the M12 power adapter and cable are ordered separately, and needs a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network or an IoTFlows 4G/LTE router.
- [SenseAi](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/senseai.md): SenseAi is a magnet-mounted sensor that reads vibration and acoustics to report machine status, uptime, downtime reasons and vibration health without a PLC connection; it ships with an external antenna, a USB cable and a power adapter, and needs a 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network or an IoTFlows 4G/LTE router, a phone for setup, and a flat magnetic mounting surface.
- [Troubleshoot a device that is offline](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/troubleshoot-offline-device.md): Work the chain from power to radio to network to cloud when an IoTFlows device stops reporting: what the signal icon's three levels mean in dBm, why a device that drops several times a day is nearly always a signal problem rather than a failed sensor, and how to tell a dead device from a dead link when a machine reads as stopped.
- [Connect a device through the 4G/LTE router](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/use-the-lte-router.md): Bring a SenseAi, SenseAi Embedded or BeamTracker online through the IFCR-150 without touching the facility network: site the router where a phone gets signal, keep every device within 100 ft (30 m) of it, let the devices join its Wi-Fi on their own, and confirm them at Devices in the dashboard. One router serves a cell, not one per machine.
- [View and manage your devices](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/hardware/view-devices.md): The Devices page draws every sensor your organization owns as a topology map: which machine each device is attached to, whether the cloud is hearing from it, and how strong its Wi-Fi signal is. Opening a device shows its firmware, MAC, IP and current SSID, and carries the two tabs that change anything, Calibration and Networks. You do not add, rename or remove hardware here: IoTFlows claims and registers every device before it ships.

### inventory

- [Adjust stock and track locations](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/adjust-stock.md): Every stock movement in IoTFlows lands at one location and writes one ledger row. This page covers opening the Adjust stock modal from an item's detail, reading Stock by location, the three directions the modal offers (Add, which writes a Receipt; Remove, which writes an Issue; and Set count, which writes an Adjustment for the difference), the note that makes a correction auditable, and the Reserved and Incoming figures that explain why what is on the shelf and what is available to a new job are different numbers. Adjusting stock takes an Owner or Administrator role, and the same adjustment exists on the web, iOS and Android.
- [How work orders move stock](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/how-work-orders-move-stock.md): A work order carries two parts lists, Parts Required and Create/Release Parts, and neither one moves anything until the work order closes. Raising it reserves the required lines, which drops what is available to other jobs without changing what is on the shelf. Setting it to Done is what moves the stock: IoTFlows shows a read-only summary of both directions, and the backend then consumes the required lines, produces the created ones, writes the inventory transactions and clears the reservation. This page maps each action to the transaction it creates, explains reserved, incoming and available, and shows where the result lands in the ledger.
- [Monitor low stock and reorder points](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/low-stock.md): The Low Stock tab lists every purchased item at or below its reorder point, with the quantity available, the reorder point it fell under, and a suggested order quantity. This page covers opening the tab, the exact rule that puts an item on the list, how an item stocked as pieces is judged, setting a reorder point against your supplier's lead time, and the four things the list leaves out. Viewing is open to every member; changing a reorder point takes an Owner or Administrator role.
- [Create and edit items](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/manage-items.md): The Items tab of Inventory is the catalog of everything you stock. This page covers browsing it, the All, Purchased, Manufactured and Tools segments, searching by name or SKU, the card and list modes, creating an item, every field an item carries and whether it can be changed later, marking an item as a reusable tool, and editing or deleting one. Creating and editing items takes an Owner or Administrator role, and the catalog is the same on the web, iOS and Android.
- [Overview: track parts and tools](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/overview.md): Inventory is 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. It runs on the web, iOS and Android. An item is a catalog line, stock is a quantity of one item at one location, a piece is an individually numbered unit of a serialized item, and every change to a count writes a transaction. Maintain and Production hold no stock of their own: a work order reserves what it requires, and closing it moves the stock and writes the ledger rows server-side.
- [Quickstart: add an item and set its stock](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/quickstart.md): Get one part under control in Inventory: create an item with a name and a SKU, set its unit and its type, receive an opening count at a named location, set the reorder point that flags it for ordering, and confirm it in the Low Stock tab. Creating and editing items takes an Owner or Administrator role. Everything created here is live on the web, iOS and Android.
- [Track serialized pieces and tools](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/serialized-pieces.md): An item stocked as pieces holds no stock of its own: each physical bar, roll, sheet, tube or container is tracked as its own record, with its own id, its own unit, its own amount and the one location it sits at. This page covers deciding when to serialize an item, adding a piece with its opening receipt, reading and adjusting per-piece stock, the capacity-1 conflict a piece raises on the scheduler when two work orders hold it at once, deleting a piece, and why a reusable tool cannot be stocked as pieces. Pieces take an Owner or Administrator role, and they exist on the web, iOS and Android.
- [Transaction types](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/inventory/transaction-types.md): The Transactions tab is the organization's stock ledger: one row per movement, carrying its type, item, location, signed change, note, author and time. This page lists all eleven transaction types with the short badge the ledger prints, the backend's full name, the direction the badge is colored for and what creates each one. It also covers the eight type filters and what each keeps, why the ledger has no work-order column, and why old rows still read Production.

### maintain

- [Give people access to Maintain](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/board-members.md): Board membership decides who can be assigned a maintenance work order. Your organization has one maintenance board, and you add people to it as named members or as whole teams from the Invite to Maintain dialog in the control bar above the board. The dialog writes as you click, with no Save step: one click adds a person or a team, a crown marks a board owner, and a trash icon removes access. Android carries the same membership list; iOS does not have this surface.
- [Create a maintenance work order](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/create-a-work-order.md): The New Maintenance Workorder modal carries every field a work order can hold: title, description, group, priority, asset, one assignee, due date, recurrence, time estimate, notes, required and created parts, images and files. Only a title and a group are required, and Create stays disabled until both exist. Everything else is optional at create time and editable afterwards from the work-order drawer.
- [Organize work on the maintenance board](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/maintenance-board.md): The maintenance board at /<organization>/maintenance shows one organization's whole maintenance backlog in four views: List, Table, Kanban, and Calendar. Every view reads the same work orders and can be grouped by asset, by group, or by the person assigned. A scope toggle, a status filter with its own time window, a machine filter, a group filter, and a search box narrow what all four show, and the Table view exports the result as a 15-column CSV.
- [Trigger maintenance from meter readings](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/meters.md): A meter counts a machine's runtime hours or part count toward a trigger point, and acts when it gets there. Each meter lives on the Meters tab of a machine's page, carries three independent behaviors (an email at 85%, an email at the trigger, and an automatic work order at 100%), and starts a new cycle when a technician resets it. Resets are logged with who made them, and every work order the meter produced stays reachable from the meter card.
- [Overview: maintenance management](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/overview.md): Maintain is the IoTFlows CMMS, and a work order is its only object: a request, a planned job and a preventive maintenance schedule are all the same record with different fields filled in. Work orders arrive from five places, from the board itself, a classified downtime, a machine event rule, a meter reaching its trigger point, or the Maintenance panel in the job runner. They move through Open, In Progress, On Hold, Done and Approved, and closing one moves stock in Inventory.
- [Schedule preventive maintenance](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/preventive-maintenance.md): Preventive maintenance in IoTFlows is a recurrence rule on a work order, not an object of its own. The Recurrence picker sits in the create modal and in the work-order drawer, anchors every pattern to the work order's due date, and takes an interval, a weekday set, an end date, and the timezone the rule is read in. A rule authored in the planner's timezone rather than the plant's lands on the wrong shift every time it fires.
- [Quickstart: create and close your first work order](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/quickstart.md): Run one maintenance job through Maintain end to end on the web: create a work order from the board with a title and a group, assign it to a technician, move it to In Progress, add a checklist item and tick it, complete it at Done, and sign it off at Approved. Create needs a title and a group and nothing else; every other field can be filled in later from the drawer.
- [Submit a maintenance request](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/submit-a-request.md): Report a machine problem from wherever you found it: the blue + above the maintenance board, the Maintenance panel in the job runner, the Create Maintenance Workorder button in Classify Downtime, the Maintenance tab on a machine's page, or the Create Maintenance Request sheet on a phone. Every path except the board submits with no group, no assignee and no recurrence, so a request raised from the floor cannot be a preventive maintenance schedule.
- [Update, discuss, and close a work order](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/work-order-detail.md): The work-order drawer is where a maintenance job is worked: it carries the five status buttons, the editable properties, a checklist, images and files, a live comment thread, and the work order's own activity log. Selecting Done opens a read-only completion dialog whenever the work order lists parts, and the backend moves the stock when the status flips.
- [Work order fields and statuses](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/maintain/work-order-fields.md): Every field a maintenance work order can hold, the five statuses it moves through, how priorities work, and the 15 columns the maintenance table exports. Only a title and a group are required, and the time estimate is the one field you cannot change after the work order exists. Two statuses are spelled differently in the CSV than on screen: Open exports as Not Started and Done exports as Completed. Column, card, and density preferences are stored per device.

### messaging

- [Manage chat members and settings](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/manage-a-chat.md): How to administer an IoTFlows chat from its info panel: select the chat's name in the header to open the panel, which carries the chat picture and name, an Add button, a More menu, and the Members, Media, Files, and Voice tabs. Edit renames a group and changes its picture, capped at 80 characters, and any member can do it. Add Members picks people and teams from the selected organization or accepts a full handle like maria:acme. Hovering a member row exposes Make Owner, Remove Owner, and Delete, none of which the web client gates on ownership. Leave removes only you and keeps the chat for everyone else; Delete Chat is shown to either side of a direct chat and removes the chat and its history for both of them; the dashboard offers no Delete Chat on a group, so a group is deleted from iOS or Android. Read receipts run on iOS and Android in direct chats only, as one check for sent and two for read; the web shows none, and no group shows any.
- [Overview: messaging in IoTFlows](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/overview.md): IoTFlows carries two kinds of conversation: chats, which hang off the people in them and live at /chats on web and natively in both mobile apps, and work-order comments, which hang off one job. This page says which one a message belongs in, and explains cross-organization chats and the orange badge that marks them.
- [Pin messages and add reactions](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/pin-and-react.md): Pin a chat message from its own menu, either for everyone with Pin for All or for yourself with Pin for Me: pinned messages surface in a banner under the chat header and in a Pinned Messages list, and unpinning from either place removes the pin for whoever holds it. Reactions come from the emoji row that opens above the same menu, or from a searchable picker behind its chevron, and each person's reaction is one emoji they can take back by selecting their own chip.
- [Quickstart: start a chat with your team](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/quickstart.md): Send your first IoTFlows message end to end: open Messaging at /chats, start a direct chat by picking a colleague out of the Users list, type into the Write a message box and press Enter, then answer what comes back by right-clicking the message and choosing Reply.
- [Search and organize your chats](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/search-messages.md): Find a message again in IoTFlows chat: the Search Messages box above the chat list searches every chat you belong to in the selected organization and waits for you to stop typing, the magnifier in a chat's header searches only that chat and fires on every keystroke, and either result jumps the thread to the message and flashes it blue for a second. A chat's unread count clears when you reach the bottom of the thread, not when you open it, and on web the list column drags between 300 and 500 px wide without remembering the width.
- [Send, reply to, edit, and delete messages](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/send-messages.md): Work a thread in IoTFlows chat: type into the Write a message box and press Enter to send, then right-click any message (long press on a touch screen) for Reply, Edit, Delete for Myself, and Delete for Everyone. Edit and Delete for Everyone appear only on your own messages, neither delete asks for confirmation, an unsent draft is saved per chat and reappears on your other devices, and every one of these actions travels over MQTT, so all of them fail together behind a Waiting for Network toast.
- [Share photos, files, and voice notes](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/share-files-and-voice-notes.md): Attach a photo, a document, or a recorded voice note to an IoTFlows chat from any client: on the web dashboard the paperclip beside the composer opens Photo or Video, File, and Camera, and the preview that follows carries the compressed-versus-original choice, where compressed caps the longest side at 1600 px and arrives as a thumbnail under Media while an original arrives as a download row under Files. Voice notes record by holding the microphone, iOS and Android add slide-left-to-cancel and slide-up-to-lock, and both phones can share a photo in from another app, which the web cannot.
- [Start a direct or group chat](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/messaging/start-a-chat.md): Start any IoTFlows conversation from the compose button on the chat list at /chats: pick one person or team out of the Users and Teams lists for a direct chat, select New Group to gather several and name them, or type a full handle like maria:acme to pull in someone from another organization, which marks the chat with an orange external badge.

### monitoring

- [Add a machine](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/add-an-asset.md): Create a machine as an asset in IoTFlows: pick its catalog model, set the name and identifier your plant uses, assign a department, and add tags.
- [Build a utilization report](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/advanced-report.md): The Advanced Report totals uptime, downtime and unknown hours for a set of machines over a period, as KPI cards, a stacked bar per interval, a pie and a row per machine grouped by department. Pick a rolling preset or a custom range at a daily to yearly interval, filter by machine and shift, exclude Unknown and None from the utilization figure, switch to only-uptime or percent view, and export the result as CSV or PDF.
- [Inspect a single machine](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/asset-detail.md): Read one machine's page at /assets/selected-asset/:id: the header's live status pill and its orange and red thresholds, the sensor tile and its Wi-Fi signal icon, uptime, downtime and the Uptime gauge against the machine's goal, then the Analytics tab's per-operation counts, Record Production for backfilling a count the sensor missed, the Uptime/Downtime and Runtime Comparison charts, the downtime Pareto and the Activity feed, notes on the Health tab, and which of the Jobs, Health and Meters tabs answers which question.
- [Review and dismiss machine events](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/asset-events.md): Read the Event Alerts list on a machine's Health tab: what an event is and how it differs from the rule that fired it, the severity and type filter pills, how rows are grouped by age and sorted, dismissing one event or a whole time group, and the two ways an event becomes a work order.
- [Group machines into cascades](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/asset-groups.md): A cascading group ties machines that one part passes through in sequence into a single line on the Assets page. Step 1 is the reference: every step after it reports first pass yield, parts lost and a rate difference against Step 1's count. You create and name groups from the Cascading Group field in a machine's Edit dialog, give each machine a step number, and switch the whole line onto a new part and a per-machine operation in one action. A cascade reads in full only in list view, and changes the Assets page rather than any report.
- [Monitor your fleet on the Assets page](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/assets-overview.md): The Assets page is the live view of every monitored machine in your organization. A KPI row totals uptime, downtime, utilization and how many machines are producing right now; a daily utilization trend sits beside it; and each machine gets a card carrying a status ring, an uptime gauge against its goal, hourly production against goal, and cycle time. Five view modes, saved to your account, trade detail against fleet size, and filters, grouping and a shift window decide what the page counts.
- [Classify downtime automatically](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/auto-downtime-rules.md): Four organization-wide rules put a reason code on the stops operators should not have to classify by hand: short downtimes, the start of a shift, the end of a shift, and a machine down for an entire shift. Scheduled break windows add a reason for lunch and breaks. Which rule to turn on first, and which to leave off until the shift schedule is trusted.
- [Choose a machine health baseline profile](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/baseline-profiles.md): Set the reference a machine's health scores are judged against on the Health tab: Dynamic Baseline, four ISO 10816 classes, or one of eight machine-type profiles, which profile fits which machine, and what the confirm dialog recalculates.
- [Map your floor with Canvas](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/canvas.md): Build a floor plan at /assets?select=canvas whose machine tiles show live status: add a floor-plan image, draw the floor with rectangles, lines, arrows, ellipses, polygons, stars and text, drag each machine tile into position, edit any element in the property drawer, and rely on autosave. Desktop only, one canvas per organization.
- [Classify a downtime event](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/classify-downtime.md): Put a reason on a machine stop from the status bar, the machine page's Activity list, Operator View's All Downtime tab, or the iOS work-order screen. Classify one stop or many at once, split a stop that holds two reasons, change an activity's operation, remove a classification, delete a false activity, and open a maintenance work order from the classification modal.
- [Manage downtime categories](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/downtime-categories.md): Downtime categories are the reason codes operators pick from when they classify a machine stop. Create one under a severity heading, require a note on the reasons that need one, mark it as planned downtime, tag it with a category type, give it a color that carries through to the Downtimes report, rename it, and understand why deleting one unclassifies every stop that ever used it.
- [Analyze downtime with Pareto and trend charts](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/downtimes.md): The Downtimes report ranks your downtime reasons by the time they cost, using a Pareto chart, a by-interval trend and a by-machine breakdown over a paginated table of individual stops. Filter by department or machine, shift, category, severity, and only-with-notes, sort by date or duration, pick a rolling date preset, and export the result as CSV or PDF. Shift islands, in the Shifts popover, reports a shift that crosses midnight entirely on the day it began.
- [Edit, hide, archive, or delete a machine](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/edit-assets.md): Rename a machine, take it off the fleet view with Hide, retire it with Archive, restore it, delete one created by mistake, and permanently delete the last few hours of its data.
- [Available exports](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/exports-reference.md): Every export IoTFlows offers, with the column list for each one. Seven surfaces download data: the Downtimes report, the Advanced Report and historical production as CSV or PDF, and Operator Performance, Production Insights, the maintenance table and the scheduler table as CSV. Every export carries the filters you have on screen. The PDF is rendered from the report URL, so it looks like the page; the CSV carries the rows. The audit log has no export.
- [Monitor machine health and vibration](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/machine-health.md): Read the Health tab on a SenseAi asset: the health score and its trend, the seven operations metrics including bearing health, the X, Y and Z axes, the FFT spectrum with its harmonic markers and RPM, the spectrogram and 3D view, the 14 metric trend charts and what each one rises with, the timestamp inspector that lines every chart up on one moment, the legacy view for firmware below 5, and how to tell degradation from a noisy baseline.
- [How each metric is calculated](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/metrics-reference.md): The definition behind every number IoTFlows shows and what each one leaves out. Uptime is availability, running time over running plus stopped, and is the number the interface has labeled OEE. Unknown time and None-severity breaks sit outside both uptime and downtime. The parts gauge measures output against the ideal cycle time, FPY compares a step's count to the first step's in a cascade, and every window is calculated whole rather than averaged per shift. Quality comes from the scrap your team logs against a job, and there is no combined OEE figure.
- [Set OEE and utilization goals](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/oee-goals.md): One percentage colors every gauge in IoTFlows. Set the organization goal from the Utilization tile on the Assets page, override it on the machines whose realistic ceiling genuinely differs by turning on Set Custom Utilization / OEE Goal in a machine's Uptime gauge, and read the table of which surface uses which goal. The coloring is binary, green at or above and red below, with no orange; the same percentage also colors the parts and cycle gauges; and the comparison is computed across the whole window you are viewing rather than averaged per shift. Owner or Administrator.
- [Measure operator work sessions](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/operator-performance.md): The Operator Performance report at /assets?select=operator_performance pairs each operator with the machine they worked and totals the machine's uptime percentage, uptime hours and downtime hours for their clocked sessions. Sessions come from sign-ins on a paired operator station, so the report's real job is finding sessions that were never closed. Filter by machine, operator and a window of up to 31 days, read each card as stacked hours per session or as a status strip, add or correct clock entries by hand, and export the whole report as CSV. Owner or Administrator, web only.
- [Set up a dedicated operator station](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/operator-stations.md): Pair a shared tablet or PC to one machine from Assigned Asset in Organization Settings so it boots straight to /assets/operator-asset/:id after every sign-in, with a header that has no product navigation. The pairing lives in that browser's local storage, so it holds whoever signs in; each sign-in clocks the operator in on the machine. Leaving needs an Owner or Administrator, and unassigning is the same setting in reverse.
- [Use Operator View on the shop floor](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/operator-view.md): Turn on Operator View from the profile menu so every machine page at /assets/selected-asset/:id renders as a full-screen operator page: a header with live status and the Uptime gauge, then a four-tab strip of Part Count, All Downtime, Jobs and Notes. Log parts, bulk classify stops, run a job and leave notes without leaving the machine. The toggle is per browser, and anyone can turn it off.
- [Overview: monitor machines and OEE](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/overview.md): 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.
- [Quickstart: read your first shift of machine data](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/quickstart.md): Read one shift of machine data correctly, from the four fleet KPIs on the Assets page down to a single stop. Pick the shift before the date, read the uptime, utilization, downtime and machines-producing tiles, read one machine's card and its status ring, open one stop from the machine's status bar and give it a downtime category. Needs a device online and shifts defined.
- [Email a report and schedule it to repeat](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/share-and-schedule-reports.md): The Downtimes report, the Advanced Report and the historical production report all carry Share and Schedule in their Actions menu. Share emails the view you built to members of your organization now, with an optional message. Schedule saves it as an automation that emails on a daily to yearly cadence, to a fixed recipient list. A schedule needs a rolling date preset, so a report on a fixed from-to window cannot be scheduled. Automations are listed, paused, edited and deleted from the same dialog, one list per report.
- [Set status colors and downtime thresholds](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/status-colors.md): Two durations decide when a stopped machine turns orange and then red on the Assets page. Set both, and the color red itself, from Adjust Status Colors on the Utilization tile. The thresholds are organization-wide, they are cosmetic rather than analytical, and a classified stop skips them for dark red. Owner or Administrator.
- [Troubleshoot wrong utilization or OEE](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/troubleshoot-monitoring.md): Symptom, cause and fix for machine numbers that do not match the floor. Check the organization timezone first, because it is the one setting that moves every number at once while leaving each one looking plausible. Then the shift schedule, then the window and the Exclude switches on screen, then the machine's own status bar, where gray means the sensor was silent and red means it was stopped. Also covers uptime that reads too high or too low, stops that never appear, unclassified backlog, and the four edits that rewrite history.
- [Display a wallboard on a TV](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/monitoring/wallboards.md): Put a live fleet view on a shop-floor screen: expand the Assets page to full screen, install the IoTFlows app on a Chromecast with Google TV, pair it with the code it displays, send it any dashboard URL from the Send URL Link modal, set its zoom, and rename or delete screens. Paired screens reload their URL on boot.

### production

- [Detect operations automatically](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/auto-detect-operations.md): Auto-detection is the setting that tells a machine which operations to watch for, so counts reach the right part without anyone touching the dashboard at a changeover. Every entry point is on the machine, not the Parts List: the Auto-Detect button on a machine's detail page, and the operation block on an Assets list row. A SenseAi shows Discrete and Continuous tabs, a BeamTracker shows Count. Discrete takes checkboxes and submits with Auto-Detect; Continuous and Count take one operation and save the moment you pick. An operation with no detection algorithm never appears in the list. Once the machine runs, its Assets row reports the measured cycle time and production rate.
- [Link required and created parts to an operation](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/bind-materials.md): Every operation row in the Parts List at /production?select=parts_list ends in two cells: what a run of the operation takes off the shelf, and what it puts back. A binding is a rule, not a transaction. It says how much of an item a given amount of work turns into, so a work order raised against the operation stages its own materials at its own quantity. Closing that work order is what moves stock, and the created side is what the scheduler's capacity lane projects output from. Editing the bindings needs Organization Owner or Administrator; every other member sees the same list read-only.
- [Choose a production tracking algorithm](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/choose-an-algorithm.md): The detection algorithm on an operation is the rule that turns a sensor's signal into part counts. BeamTracker takes Counter and nothing else. A SenseAi machine takes Continuous Analysis when the trace never returns to the stopped level, Discrete Analysis when each part is one burst with idle time around it, and Discrete w/o Merge when every impact is a part. Compare all four, validate against a hand count over ten parts, and switch without losing the operations already assigned to a machine.
- [Configure tracking for CNC mills and lathes](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/cnc-machines.md): Set up part counting on a machining center whose cycle time changes with the part. Mount the SenseAi near the spindle, measure a typical cycle by hand, create the part with one operation per thing the machine does, set the operation's algorithm to Discrete Analysis, then assign every operation the machine runs to it at once from the Auto-Detect modal's Discrete tab, which is multi-select. Validate against a hand count, expect 40 to 85% uptime depending on how much of the cycle an operator carries, and read setup time out of the Downtimes report.
- [Create a production work order](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/create-a-job.md): The Create Workorder form adds one task to the production queue: one operation, on one machine, for a quantity of a part. Only the title is required, and every other field is a chip above it. Picking a machine auto-fills the operation, the time estimate and the parts that operation reserves. The form always assigns the new task to you and has no due date control, so work created here lands in My Work and starts out unscheduled on the board. Create from the Scheduler instead when you are planning work for somebody else.
- [Set cycle times and downtime filters](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/cycle-times-and-filters.md): Three numbers on an operation decide whether counts and goals match the floor: the ideal cycle time in the Ideal Operation Cycle Time column of the Parts List at /production?select=parts_list, the quantity per cycle in QTY/OP, and the continuous downtime filter percentage, which only Continuous Analysis operations carry and which accepts 0 to 200%. Production rate is the same number inverted, 60 divided by the cycle in seconds. The Calculated Goal on Shift Production, the parts gauge and the hourly bars are all derived from the ideal cycle time, and none of them can be set anywhere else.
- [Compare production over weeks and months](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/historical-production.md): Historical, at /production?select=historical_report, charts good parts and scrap across days, weeks, months, quarters or years, then breaks the total into one card per operation and one row per machine that ran it. Every Last N preset ends at the last completed period, so this week never competes with a full one. Show Scrap adds a second red column beside each period's good column, and only scrap logged against a job reaches it. Actions downloads the view as CSV or a server-rendered PDF, or emails it now or on a cadence.
- [Import a schedule from your ERP](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/import-erp-schedule.md): Turn a CSV or Excel export from your ERP into scheduled jobs. The importer runs as a six-step wizard: Upload, Read file, Check columns, Match people, Preview and Import. Only Job / Order number and Task name have to be mapped; rows sharing an order number become one job, and each row becomes one task under it. Column detection, date parsing and status translation all run in your browser. Parts the file names but your organization does not have are created automatically, which is the main source of duplicate parts, so the preview and the post-import cleanup both matter.
- [Configure tracking for injection molding](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/injection-molding.md): Set up part counting on an injection molding machine, whose shot cycle repeats to the second. Mount the SenseAi on the injection unit or near the hydraulic power unit, time 10 to 20 shots by hand, create the part with one operation per mold, set the operation's algorithm to Continuous Analysis, set QTY/OP to the cavity count, and set the Downtime Filter so brief mold-open pauses do not read as stops. The filter takes 0 to 200%. The Continuous tab of the Auto-Detect modal is single choice, so the machine carries one operation at a time and you re-pick it at every mold change.
- [Job and scheduler fields](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/job-fields-reference.md): Every field a production task can hold, the five statuses it moves through, the fields a work session carries, and the 24 columns the scheduler table exports. Title is the only required field on a task, and a parent job carries no status of its own. Six export columns are always on, the CSV adds a Part column the table does not have, and two more ship visible, so a default export is nine of the 24. Maintenance work orders are a different object with a different field list.
- [Log scrap and manage scrap reasons](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/log-scrap.md): Scrap is recorded against the work session that made it, from the Scrap button in the job runner's action rail, and every entry needs a reason code drawn from one organization-wide list. The Pause Session dialog, the Complete Job dialog and the Job History session editor hold that session's scrap as editable rows and refuse to save a row that has a quantity and no reason. Reason codes are created, renamed and deleted inside the Log Scrap dialog itself, and deleting one makes every entry already logged against it print its raw identifier. Scrap never comes out of the good count.
- [Generate a schedule proposal](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/optimize-the-schedule.md): The Optimize pill on the scheduler Gantt computes a constraint-aware plan and draws it as dashed indigo ghost bars with a banner reading violations and span before and after. Nothing is written until you click Apply, which saves every included move as one undoable batch. Completed, locked and in-progress work is pinned and never moves, and a scoped run on a selection holds the rest of the board fixed and plans the selection around it. Clicking a ghost skips that move, so you can apply part of a proposal.
- [Overview: track and schedule production](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/overview.md): Production covers two halves, set up separately and answering different questions. Tracking turns a machine's signal into part counts and is available to every customer: it needs a part, an operation, a detection algorithm and an ideal cycle time, and it produces the Shift Production and Historical boards. Scheduling adds jobs, tasks, sessions, the scheduler board, the Work Queue, ERP import and cost insights, and needs the Scheduling Engine module. Parts and operations are a hard prerequisite for scheduling, because a task is one operation on one machine.
- [Configure tracking for bottling and packaging lines](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/packaging-lines.md): Set up part counting on a line whose output is units moving past a point: bottles, cans, packets, tubes, cartons or cases. Mount a BeamTracker across the part path after the last reject point, set the operation's algorithm to Counter, name the unit in OP UNIT so gauges read bottles/min, and set QTY/OP to 1 when the beam sees each unit or to the pack count when it sees a case. A Counter operation's cycle time feeds goals and the rate, never the count, and the downtime filter lives on the device in seconds rather than on the Parts List as a percentage. The Count tab of the Auto-Detect modal is single choice, so the line carries one operation at a time and you re-pick it at every product change.
- [Create parts and operations](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/parts-and-operations.md): The Parts List at /production?select=parts_list holds every part your plant makes and the operations that make it. A part carries a name, a picture and files; an operation carries the step number, the unit, the quantity per cycle, the detection algorithm and the ideal cycle time, and it is the thing every count, goal and job actually hangs off. Add Part creates a part named New Part with no dialog, and every field after that is edited in place on the row and saved when you leave the cell.
- [Analyze cost and on-time performance](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/production-insights.md): Insights, at /production?select=insights, prices scheduled work at two hourly rates you type in: Labor $/hr and Production $/hr, defaulting to $35 and $50. It multiplies each task's labor hours and machine hours by those rates, compares the result with the Budget typed on the task, and reports completion, on-time, cost, profit and margin across a date range that opens on the last 90 days. The rates live in the report and are never saved to your organization. A task with no due date counts as on time, and an Approved task counts as neither Completed nor Active.
- [Quickstart: count your first parts](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/quickstart.md): Take one machine from no production data to a part count you trust. Create a part on the Parts List at /production?select=parts_list, add an operation to it, set the operation's detection algorithm and ideal cycle time, then assign the operation to the machine from the asset's Auto-Detect button. Validate by running ten parts by hand and comparing them with the count on Shift Production. Every field saves as you leave it, and no part of this setup needs new hardware.
- [Start, pause, and complete a job](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/run-a-job.md): The job runner is the page an operator works a task on, at /production/work-queue/<id>. Start opens a work session, the part counter and the scrap button write to that session, and pause and complete both close it. Add to count adds to the session's count; Set session total replaces it, which is the mistake that costs a shift. Job History is where sessions are created, edited and deleted, and the right-hand rail carries the job's details, comments, files, queue and a maintenance request form.
- [Find and fix problems in the schedule](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/schedule-issues.md): The Schedule issues pill on the scheduler Gantt is the one place that lists everything wrong with the board: machines booked twice at the same time, serialized pieces two work orders both need, tooling with no units free, past-due work and work waiting on a predecessor that cannot finish in time. It is always on screen, including at zero, and its count is distinct work orders rather than findings. Conflicts and violations come first and carry one-click fixes that move the task to the earliest free slot; the two at-risk sections come last and are folded, because moving an overdue job's date is a judgment call rather than a repair.
- [Give people access to a scheduler board](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/scheduler-members.md): Board membership decides who can be assigned work on the Scheduler. Your organization has one production board, and you add people to it as named members or as whole teams. The Invite to Scheduler dialog writes as you click, with no Save step: one click adds a person or a team, a crown marks a board owner, and a trash icon removes access. Owner is recorded on the board but the dashboard does not gate anything on it today.
- [Plan jobs in the Production Scheduler](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/scheduler.md): The Production Scheduler at /production?select=scheduler shows one production schedule in five views: List, Table, Gantt, Kanban and Calendar. Table is the default and the only view with a CSV button. Grouping by asset, job or operator changes what the rows and columns mean in every view but Calendar. Dragging work between machines, editing in place and linking dependent tasks all write straight to the work order and revert on screen if the write fails. The Gantt carries Sequence view, Working hours mode, the work-sessions strip, unscheduled chips and the capacity lane.
- [Track production against shift goals](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/shift-production.md): Shift Production, at /production?select=part, lists every operation that has run this shift with its calculated goal, good count, pace and hourly bars, and expands each operation into one row per machine. The Progress gauge is green at or above the machine's OEE goal and red below it, with no orange. Goals here are read-only: the calculated goal comes from the operation's ideal cycle time in the Parts List, and the percentage that colors the gauge comes from the OEE goal. Six filters write themselves into the URL, which is what makes the board sendable to a TV.
- [Try a schedule change without saving it](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/simulate-a-schedule.md): A Simulation is a sandbox on the scheduler Gantt. Every move is staged in your browser instead of being written, and a dashed teal band scores the draft against the live schedule frozen at the moment you started, on violations, double-bookings, overdue work, span and unscheduled tasks. The What-ifs drawer adds custom working hours and rule relaxations that change the projection but are never saved. Commit writes the staged work orders and cannot be undone; Discard throws the draft away without asking.
- [Configure tracking for stamping and punch presses](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/stamping-presses.md): Set up stroke counting on a press that fires 10 to 120 times a minute. Mount the SenseAi on the frame near the ram, measure the stroke rate, create the part with one operation per die, set the operation's algorithm to Discrete w/o Merge, then assign every die's operation at once from the Auto-Detect modal's Discrete tab, which is multi-select. Because nothing is merged, every gap between strokes reaches the downtime record until you set the machine's Downtime Threshold with Treat short downtimes as uptime switched on. Operation Cycle Time takes whole seconds, so a press faster than 60 strokes per minute cannot carry an exact cycle time and its shift goal is approximate.
- [Troubleshoot inaccurate part counts](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/troubleshoot-part-counts.md): Symptom, cause and fix for a part count that does not match the floor. Check QTY/OP in the Parts List first, because an exact 2x or 0.5x error is a multiplier rather than a detector: one cycle producing two parts, or two cycles producing one. A count that drifts over a shift is the ideal cycle time on Continuous Analysis, which divides running time by it. Also covers a count of zero, BeamTracker counting things that are not parts, counts that stop when the sensor goes offline, and why the platform's gross count and an ERP's good-parts figure are not the same number.
- [Find your next job in the Work Queue](https://www.iotflows.com/docs/production/work-queue.md): The Work Queue is the operator's list of scheduled production tasks. My Work holds what is assigned to you or to one of your teams; Available Work holds everything else the queue loaded. It opens on My Work on every platform, which is why an operator with no assignments sees an empty page. Filters narrow it by machine, tag, operation and completion status, and list mode adds the due date and a priority dot that the cards do not show. Starting a job does not assign it to you: only the mobile job page and the Scheduler change who owns a task.

## Customers

Case studies from manufacturers running IoTFlows, with the results they measured.

- [Altium Packaging Runs on Live Yield](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/altium-packaging.md) (Altium Packaging, Plastic Packaging Manufacturing): How Altium Packaging's Memphis plant counts every bottle on its ten lines with BeamTracker, reads first pass yield and the bottles lost at every step of every line as they happen, schedules maintenance by the bottle in Maintain, and runs the floor from live data on TVs, desktops and phones instead of reports that took days or weeks.
- [Criollos Foods Raises Productivity 35%](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/criollos-foods.md) (Criollos Foods, Food Packaging & Production): How Criollos Foods improved bagging line efficiency by tracking real-time production rates, downtime causes, and operator performance metrics.
- [Datwyler Halves Shift-Changeover Downtime](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/datwyler.md) (Datwyler, Precision Injection Molding): How Datwyler's injection molding plant in Ontario, California, cut shift-changeover downtime by 50% and material-changeover downtime by 30% in six months, and raised fleet efficiency 20%, with SenseAi and the Downtimes report.
- [Hilco Vision Raises Production Over 20%](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/hilco-vision.md) (Hilco Vision, Optical Manufacturing): How Hilco Vision transformed their optical manufacturing operation from reactive firefighting and missed targets to real-time predictive control, turning every downtime event into an elimination opportunity.
- [Hugo Benzing Raises Efficiency 20%](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/hugo-benzing.md) (Hugo Benzing, Automotive Components Manufacturing): How Hugo Benzing's US plant gained 20% efficiency, saves 10+ planning hours a week and went live in under two weeks with the IoTFlows Production Scheduler.
- [Jesel Responds to Issues in Minutes](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/jesel.md) (Jesel, Valvetrain Manufacturing): How Jesel transformed daily manufacturing operations by using real-time OEE data and cycle time validation to identify process deviations early and make informed decisions.
- [MiRus Sees the Cost of Every Job](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/mirus.md) (MiRus, Medical Device Manufacturing): How MiRus, a Marietta, Georgia implant maker, raised efficiency by more than 20% with live machine data from SenseAi and SenseAi Embedded, and a two-way Epicor connector that ties every job to its machining and labor hours.
- [Ranpak: Blueprint for Global Excellence](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/ranpak.md) (Ranpak, Sustainable Packaging Manufacturing): How Ranpak transformed a single-factory pilot into a blueprint for worldwide deployment, unlocking a new business model that shifts from reactive repairs to predictive fleet intelligence across thousands of customer machines.
- [RNPSA Halves Maintenance Response Time](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/rnpsa.md) (RNPSA, Mining Equipment Manufacturing): How RNPSA's continuous vibration monitoring and Maintain integration eliminated silent tool crashes, collapsed silos between operations and maintenance, and created a forensic view into every machine incident.
- [Sorinex Raises Efficiency 50%](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/sorinex-exercise-equipment.md) (Sorinex, Exercise Equipment Manufacturing): How Sorinex achieved 50% efficiency gains and 60% faster issue resolution with real-time machine visibility and downtime tracking.
- [Stanley Black & Decker Traces Every Weld](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/stanley-black-decker.md) (Stanley Black & Decker, Automotive Robotic Welding): How Stanley Black & Decker used the IoTFlows edge device to pull every welding data point from the robotic welding machines on a major automotive customer's production lines, so its analytics team could score every weld and flag each welding head for maintenance before quality drops.
- [Storm Power Doubles Machine Utilization](https://www.iotflows.com/customers/storm-power-components.md) (Storm Power Components, Electronic Manufacturing): How Storm Power Components in Decatur, Tennessee, doubled machine utilization with SenseAi on its CNC machines, lasers and presses, took chemical bath timing errors to zero with BeamTracker, and ties operator bonuses to measured performance.

## Blog

Guides to OEE, downtime, maintenance and machine data, grouped by topic. Each link is the article as plain Markdown.

### OEE and metrics

- [What cycle time is and how to measure it per part](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/what-is-cycle-time.md): Cycle time is how long one cycle really takes, timed at the machine. Learn which cycle to time, how to measure it per part and which figure to use for each job.
- [Manufacturing KPIs with formulas and worked examples](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/manufacturing-kpis.md): 21 production KPIs, each with one formula, one unit and a worked example from the same lathe shift, plus the denominator traps that make two reports disagree.
- [Manual vs automatic OEE tracking in the first week](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/manual-vs-automatic-oee-tracking.md): Machine-reported stops move lost minutes from performance into availability. OEE itself moves only if part counts, ideal cycle times or planned time were off.
- [Which OEE factor is costing you the most time?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/which-oee-factor-loses-most.md): Compare availability, performance and quality in lost minutes, check the inputs behind each factor, then weigh each loss by its cost to see where to look first.
- [How to set ideal cycle time, and what it does to OEE](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/ideal-cycle-time.md): The ideal cycle time sets OEE performance and the shift goal. Learn who should own it, how to time it, and what a 10% error does to every number built on it.
- [How to calculate OEE from one shift’s numbers](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-to-calculate-oee.md): OEE is availability × performance × quality. Work one shift through by hand, check the result in lost minutes and avoid the mistakes that skew the number.
- [OEE monitoring tools for manufacturing, compared](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/top-oee-monitoring-tools-for-manufacturing.md): OEE monitoring tools differ in where their data comes from: an operator, a wired signal, a sensor, the controller or an MES. Compare five types and pick one.
- [What is OEE?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/what-is-oee.md): OEE measures how much planned production time becomes good parts made at full speed. Learn the three factors, the formula, one worked shift and what it hides.

### Downtime and utilization

- [How to run a weekly downtime review that fixes causes](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/downtime-root-cause-review.md): Put five blocks on one page, take the top reason down to a cause someone can change, and check each fix against a target set in advance. Worked example inside.
- [How to know mid-shift whether you will hit target](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/production-monitoring-shift-goal.md): Compare the count with the goal to now, project the shift at its current pace, and use the stop budget to see whether a gap can still be recovered.
- [How to reduce machine downtime, one cause at a time](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/reduce-machine-downtime.md): Cut unplanned downtime in four steps: record every stop, rank reasons by hours, split each into how often and how long, then fix it. Worked CNC example inside.
- [How to track machine downtime and its causes](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-to-track-machine-downtime.md): Let a machine signal record every stop and ask operators only for the reason. A worked shift, rules that name routine stops, and a first-week checklist.
- [What is machine utilization, and how do you calculate it?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/what-is-machine-utilization.md): Machine utilization is running time divided by the time a machine could have run. Learn the four denominators, work one week by hand and pick the right one.
- [What utilization to expect by machine type](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/utilization-goals-by-machine-type.md): A manual CNC runs 40–60% of the shift, a coil-fed press 65–80% and a lights-out cell 80–90%. See why loading sets the ceiling and how to set each goal.
- [Utilization, uptime, OEE, OOE and TEEP on one calendar](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/utilization-uptime-oee-teep.md): OEE, OOE and TEEP divide the same good output by ever larger slices of the week. Work one week through all five metrics and see why shifts cap TEEP.
- [How to calculate the cost of an hour of downtime](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/cost-of-downtime.md): Price an hour of downtime from your own margin, crew and repair costs, with a formula, a worked bottling-line example and the test for when lost output counts.
- [Planned vs unplanned downtime and what counts against OEE](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/planned-vs-unplanned-downtime.md): Breaks, changeovers and planned maintenance are all downtime. See which count against OEE availability, with one shift worked three ways and a decision table.
- [How to build a downtime Pareto from real minutes](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/downtime-pareto.md): Rank downtime reasons by the minutes they cost: sum each stop under its reason, sort, add a cumulative line. A worked week of stops shows where to act first.
- [Do micro-stops count as downtime?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/micro-stops.md): Micro-stops are downtime, but standard OEE definitions book them as a performance loss. See where they land, why OEE holds steady and how to set the cutoff.
- [Which downtime reason codes to log, and how many](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/downtime-reason-codes.md): Log 8 to 12 reasons operators pick by hand, plus a few that rules assign to routine stops. Get a 15-code starter list, rules for each code and a worked Pareto.
- [The true cost of idle machines](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/cost-of-idle-machines.md): An idle machine keeps costing you depreciation, floor space, idle power and any operator waiting at it. Price an idle hour, and learn when it costs output too.

### Maintenance and reliability

- [Detecting CNC tool crashes from shock events](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/cnc-tool-crash-detection.md): Catch every CNC tool crash from the shock it sends through the machine: what a crash looks like in g, how to set the threshold and what to do after each alert.
- [When the production schedule leaves no time for PM](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/pm-vs-production-schedule.md): Book PM as a job on its machine so it takes capacity, time it to changeovers and weekends, price each deferral, and agree who decides when PM and orders clash.
- [Turn a classified stop into a work order in the same step](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/work-orders-from-downtime.md): Open the work order where the operator classifies the stop, so it starts with the machine, reason, time, duration and note. Decision guide and example inside.
- [What is a CMMS, and why start it from the machine?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/what-is-a-cmms.md): A CMMS tracks work orders, PM schedules, assets and spare parts. See what it does for a plant, why hand-entered history misleads, and how to judge floor fit.
- [How to build a preventive maintenance schedule that holds](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/preventive-maintenance-schedule.md): A PM schedule holds when every task has an owner, a time estimate and a booked stop. Build the task list, level the weekly hours and track PM compliance.
- [Usage-based maintenance from run hours and part counts](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/usage-based-maintenance.md): Usage-based maintenance makes PM due on run hours or parts made, not dates. Pick the unit, set the first interval, size the warning and keep dates where needed.
- [How to choose a maintenance strategy for each machine](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/maintenance-strategies.md): Match each machine to reactive, preventive, usage-based, condition-based or predictive maintenance with a four-question test, survey data and worked examples.

### Machines and connectivity

- [What is machine monitoring, and what does it measure?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/what-is-machine-monitoring.md): Machine monitoring records each machine’s run state, part counts, cycle times, stops and health. See where each signal comes from and what a plant does with it.
- [How to monitor stamping presses, stroke by stroke](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-to-monitor-stamping-presses.md): Track strokes, parts per stroke, stops, die and coil changes and scrap on any press. Compare a frame sensor, exit beam and press control on a 40 SPM shift.
- [Part counting methods and which one fits your machine](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/part-counting-methods.md): Count parts from machine cycles, a beam break, the controller’s counter or a hand tally. Match a method to CNC, molding, presses and packaging, then check it.
- [How a sensor knows a machine is running](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-sensors-detect-machine-state.md): A sensor tells running from stopped by comparing vibration or sound with two calibrated levels and ignoring brief swings. See how, and when to use the control.
- [Production line monitoring without PLCs](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/production-line-monitoring-without-plcs.md): Yes. A laser counter at every step, read against Step 1, gives you line yield, the units lost at each step and the step that stopped first, with no PLC access.
- [Counting parts and cycle times on CNC mills and lathes](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/cnc-cycle-time-and-part-counts.md): Count CNC parts and time each cycle from outside the control: what one cycle is, one operation per job, parts per cycle, and a hand count that proves it.
- [Connecting machine data to your ERP](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/connect-machine-data-to-erp.md): Get machine hours and part counts into Epicor, SAP or JobBOSS: what the ERP needs per job, how to match runs to jobs, and which integration path fits.
- [What IoT machine data adds to an MES](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/manufacturing-excellence-with-mes-and-iot.md): An MES is only as accurate as its machine data. Measured stops and part counts replace typed-in ones, so its downtime and OEE factor split come out right.
- [How to monitor a packaging line and count every unit](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-to-monitor-a-packaging-line.md): Count output after the last reject, take the ideal rate from the slowest machine, and find which filler, capper or labeler stopped first. With a worked shift.
- [How to monitor injection molding machines](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/monitor-injection-molding-machines.md): Count shots, multiply by working cavities and keep mold-open pauses out of downtime. Learn why a molder's count reads double or half, and how to check it.
- [How to monitor an old machine with no network port](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/monitor-old-machines-without-a-plc.md): A sensor on the frame reads running, stopped and every cycle from outside, so a 30-year-old machine with no port reports uptime and part counts like a new one.
- [How to monitor CNC machines of any brand or age](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/how-to-monitor-cnc-machines.md): Put a sensor on every CNC for run state, cycles and stops on any brand or age, then read the control over MTConnect where it pays. Includes a worked shift.
- [What manufacturing data to collect, and how to collect it](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/manufacturing-data-collection.md): Collect machine state, part counts, stop reasons and scrap first. See what sensors, controllers and operators each capture, and what to ask a vendor.
- [What Industry 4.0, IIoT and digital twins mean](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/industry-4-0-iot-and-digital-twin.md): Industry 4.0 is the goal, IIoT carries the machine data and a digital twin is a live copy that also acts. See what each means for a small plant, with numbers.
- [How SCADA differs from IIoT and cloud monitoring](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/scada-vs-newer-manufacturing-technologies.md): SCADA supervises and controls a process from PLC data. IIoT collects machine data for analysis. Learn what each does, where they meet and when to run both.
- [MTConnect, OPC UA and Modbus compared](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/machine-communication-protocols.md): MTConnect reads machine tools, OPC UA models and secures plant data, and Modbus moves bare registers. See how each one works and when your machines need it.

### Operations and lean

- [Add a shift, buy a machine or recover lost hours?](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/add-a-shift-or-buy-a-machine.md): Recover lost hours first, add a shift when you can staff it and buy a machine when you can’t. Each route priced per good part on one CNC lathe, by hand.
- [When to replace a spreadsheet production schedule](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/replace-spreadsheet-schedule.md): An Excel schedule fails once one change has effects nobody sees. Learn the five signs, what each replacement checks, and how to move your open jobs across.
- [Production scheduling on real run rates](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/production-scheduling-on-real-run-rates.md): Schedule from the rate each machine really runs, not its ideal cycle time. Turn measured OEE factors into job durations, pick a rate and load machines safely.
- [How to find the bottleneck machine, with numbers](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/find-the-bottleneck.md): The bottleneck is the machine with the least spare time for its load. Calculate load, check busy time and queues, and prove it with lost hours. Worked example.
- [Why reworked parts don’t count in first pass yield](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/first-pass-yield.md): Reworked parts aren’t good parts in first pass yield or OEE quality. Work FPY, final yield and scrap rate on one batch, and see why quality and scrap disagree.
- [Measure changeover time before you try to cut it](https://www.iotflows.com/blog/measure-changeover-time.md): Time changeovers from last good part to first good part, log internal and external work, and compare by type and median. A worked mold change shows how.

## Optional

- [Full documentation, customer stories and blog as one file](https://www.iotflows.com/llms-full.txt)